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SpongeBob Squarepants Merry Mayhem

SpongeBob Squarepants Merry Mayhem

Blast some caroling robots to save the Krusty Krab and the sacred Krabby Patty formula.

Smashing Ideas shattered its own hiring projections

Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) – by Greg Lamm Staff Writer
Smashing Ideas, a Seattle-based digital marketing company with clients such as Panasonic, Microsoft and Adobe, has grown at a steady clip during the recession as companies look for ways to touch people with advertising campaigns on their smart phones. For the last six months, Smashing Ideas has averaged about one hire a month and currently has five openings, including for a marketing manager, a business development manager and three developers.
The 13-year-old company was started by three animators who got in early with digital marketing and animation. Today, Smashing Ideas has 65 employees, of which 55 are in the company’s downtown Seattle headquarters. Smashing Ideas also has an office in Portland and in the United Kingdom.
CEO Steve Jackson said Smashing Ideas helps companies deliver rich media content and applications across all screens, including the web as well as iPhones and other personal devices. “The audience we are trying to reach, they are no longer at their desk,” Jackson said. He said clients such as Disney, Mattel and Nickelodeon are still heavily focused on the internet, because that is where a lot of their audiences are. But other clients are making a big push to have digital marketing campaigns displayed on iPhones and BlackBerries. In addition to working with Panasonic and Microsoft, Smashing Ideas also is developing the user interface for a device under development by General Electric.
Jackson said Smashing Ideas began the year with conservative revenue expectations because of the recession. But by midyear, when it was clear that revenue would outpace earlier projections, the company started hiring. Jackson declined to release a revenue figure for 2009. But he said the company should continue to grow. For 2010, Smashing Ideas is projecting revenue to increase by 35 percent.
The company is seeking a digital marketing manager in Portland to work with Energy Star, the government-backed program that promotes energy-efficient appliances and practices. Smashing Ideas also is looking for a business development manager and three developers, including an iPhone developer and an ActionScript developer.