Opinion: From SBJ with Love, the teaser ad revealed

We’ve been teasing it all summer, and the day finally is here.

On July 28, we launched a newly rebranded SBJ.net, the culmination of months of work by our staff.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the ads in our paper featuring prominent businesspeople in the community posed in James Bond attire.

Reminiscent of the Get a Clue campaign that heralded SBJ.net’s first major redesign in 2008, we wanted to make a big – and mysterious – splash with the new website. Back then, it was Jack Stack as Professor O’Penbook, Jim Anderson as Col. Mustnogh and Patti Penny as Mrs. Wisdahm.

From the Bond-themed campaign, some great examples were Curtis Jared as Bond, Tom Strong as a Russian villain and Michael Moss Early as Miss Moneypenny. Missouri State University’s Allen Kunkel as Jaws from Bond films “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker” was my personal favorite, but we really had an all-star cast volunteer their time and personalities. Designed by Springfield Business Journal’s lead designer, Heather Mosley, we had a lot of fun with the ads, and we hope you enjoyed speculating about their meaning.

After the reveal, the cast took to Twitter for more fun.

Kunkel tweeted to me: “Glad to be someone’s favorite villain.” Further, he tweeted to SBJ: “Great to see my grill reflect off @BaldKirk head.” Kirk Elmquist, aka @BaldKirk, played classic Bond – and bald – super villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld from the early days of the movie franchise.

We can’t thank them enough.

With the Bond campaign, we attempted to convey a sleek new look, while maintaining the stateliness you’ve known for years. Our mock titles – “Golden Touch”, “Live and Let Thrive” and “Quantum of Success” – were designed to present SBJ.net as a tool for helping businesspeople achieve great things. Bond’s gadgets are representative of increased functionality, such as a homepage worth visiting, bigger, bolder art, better share buttons and a more complete search tool.

Sitewide, you’ll find three buttons titled Talk to SBJ, Events and Experts. We wanted these buttons front and center, and simple to use. Have a news tip for our editorial staff? Give us a shout. Want to connect with advertising? It’s easy. Whenever you want to talk, we’re here. Need to nominate someone for an event? It shouldn’t be a mystery. We’ve also simplified our login area so you can’t miss it, as well as added a dedicated section for sponsored ad content under Experts.

Home page content ranges from the top business news of the day to print issue stories and headlines from our Today in Business e-newsletter. Most-read stories are populated in real time, and we’re now posting blogs onto the site that we previously published at TheFinePrintSBJ.Wordpress.com. Next up is a new mobile site coming soon.

Changes of this magnitude don’t come without growing pains. We’ve taken steps to make this process as seamless as possible for our readers, but if that is not the case, don’t hesitate to contact me directly at gpickle@sbj.net.

More than ever, we want to be your source for information.

Springfield Business Journal Web Editor Geoff Pickle can be reached at gpickle@sbj.net.