We’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with with Matthew Novelli since May. Matthew has battled kidney failure his entire life and needs a transplant. He’s on a multi-year waitlist for a deceased donor but wants to find a living donor and raise awareness for the many others like him that need an organ transplant now.

The waitlist system saves many lives… but it can also lead to unnecessarily long (and often painful) waits, discarded organs (!!!), and loss of life.

Matthew was inspired by someone who found a living kidney donor via Facebook, and he reached out to us for help with paid social ads. We’ve since consulted him in a number of areas and become friends. We’ve been blessed with many incredible clients and projects since 2009, but none have been as humbling and personally meaningful as our “work” with Matthew.

You can only imagine our elation when our we landed an interview with Kacey Bowen at FOX 7 Austin! The story originally aired yesterday, 11/30/21, and has already run a few more times today. You can see the full video here, which includes a brief cameo by one of our co-founders: https://www.fox7austin.com/video/1007660.

If you’re interested in learning more about Matthew’s story and potentially becoming a donor, please, please, please visit his “Matthew’s Kidney Search” page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matthewskidneysearch.

Thank you!

Today is our first day back in the office together since March 13, 2020. Given all that’s happened in the world while we were remote, we feel incredibly blessed to be fully vaccinated and safely together again, doing what we love with (and for) people we love. We look forward to seeing more of you in-person soon and wish you all the absolute best in the meantime!

One Love,
the mixtape crew

We’ve come a long way in ten years but have never lost sight of how and where our journey began. We want to thank everyone that’s supported us since 2009, from clients to vendor partners to friends and family, including those who no longer have a desk at HQ but will always have a place in our hearts. We couldn’t have done any of this without all of you.

In honor of our anniversary, we created a mixtape inspired by the story of our agency (see liner notes). It spans nearly as many decades and different genres as we serve industries and types of clients. It’s a rollercoaster but, somehow, it all works. We hope you enjoy the ride as much as we have.

Here’s to ten more!
– ben, charlie & the mixtape crew

*Pro Tip: A professional photographer will make sure everyone’s in the shot (sorry, Laura!) and in focus.

In conjunction with the celebration of our 10-year anniversary later this month, we’re proud to announce the launch of our new ‘Pause+Give’ VTO (volunteer time off) initiative!

SUMMARY
VTO is philanthropy-focused PTO (paid time off). Pause+Give encourages team members to get out of the office and donate their time/talents (up to two hours per month or 24 hours per year) to local organizations and causes that mean something to them. It’s our way of shining a light on the important work of others and giving back to the Austin community that’s given so much to us over the years.

INSPIRATION
You never really “clock out” when you work for a dynamic small business like ours, and balancing that with the equally dynamic demands of life away from the office is somewhat of an art form. Despite our best intentions, finding and allowing ourselves the time to volunteer can be difficult. Pause+Give is a mandate to step away and refocus (and have some fun).

As an extension of our brand… Pause+Give pays tribute to the act of pressing/depressing multiple buttons while syncing audio sources and/or tracks, to create cassette mixtapes (we’re old enough to remember doing that).

As a way of thinking… Pause+Give reinforces the importance of taking time each day to block out the noise and be mindful of the people, ideas and other things that truly matter and keep us grounded.

As a way of being/doing… Pause+Give reminds us of the profound power of giving and the exponential impact we can have when we’re good stewards to the world around us and inspire others to give, too.

ORGANIZATIONS & CAUSES
We aim to continually refine and grow Pause+Give, to connect with and help more and more deserving organizations and causes. Here’s who/what we’ll be supporting at launch:

• Charlie: Mobile Loaves & Fishes
• Ben: Keep Austin Beautiful
• Wendy: Inside Books Project
• Craig: Austin Pets Alive!
• Laura: Central Texas Food Bank

JOIN IN
Feeling inspired? Need our help making a connection? Want to volunteer with us? Awesome! Holler at us any time.

We’re overjoyed to share the news that Cody and Kristen Fields — our friends, clients and the founders of mmmpanadas — have won the grand prize in HEB’s 5th annual Quest for Texas Best competition! They took home $25,000, a brand new Toyota Tundra and the coveted title of “Texas Best” Primo Pick. mmmpanadas products will also receive premium placement on store shelves. HEB’s presence throughout Texas has proven to be a game changer for prior winners, in terms of brand recognition and sales.

mmmpanads was one of 25 finalists selected from more than 700 innovative food and beverage entrepreneurs hailing from nearly 140 cities and towns across Texas. Finalists pitched before a panel of HEB judges August 9th-10th at Austin’s Central Texas Food Bank. They were judged based on quality, marketability and product readiness.

If you ask us, HEB couldn’t have selected a better product or more deserving pair of people for this distinction.

We love working with Kristen and Cody and are tremendously proud of our mmmpanadas work to-date — Past, present and future projects include:

• custom website design and development
• pizza-style to-go boxes (food truck)
• burrito-style grab-and-go boxes (retail)
• branded coloring book
• presentation deck for HEB ‘Quest for Texas Best’ competition
• wrappers for grab-and-go frozen singles (retail) [in progress]
• fleet graphics for truck and trailer [in progress]
• multi-pack frozen box (retail) [future]
• cocktail-size stand-up pouch (retail) [future]

More details/coverage here: https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2018/08/13/mmmpanadas-wins-shelf-space-at-heb-25-000-in.html
… and here: https://www.kvue.com/article/life/food/austin-area-foodie-wins-grand-prize-in-h-e-bs-primo-picks-competition/269-581834088
… and all over the googlebots and interwebs

UPDATE (8/30/2018): Our submission was approved, but we opted against our choice of the $3,500 “Non-profit/Small Business” or $20,000 “Base Corporate” packages. It’s unfortunate this information wasn’t disclosed anywhere pre-submission. To say the least.

***

There’s a national day for seemingly everything now. So we’ve submitted that October 14th should be National Mixtape Day. We won’t know if we’ve been selected for 4-6 weeks and appreciate your support while we wait.

National Mixtape Day would be a celebration of art and individual expression. The term “mixtape” was born in the 1980s but has long transcended the analog cassette, having survived the CD and MPEG eras and still serving as the preferred nomenclature in today’s increasingly cloud-based, on-demand digital world. To younger generations, mixtapes are most notably an accessible way for hip-hop artists to self-produce and share their art with fans, new and old… but older generations recall mixtapes as an intensely personal and painstaking (especially when using the radio or another cassette tape as the source to compile tracks) form of storytelling and expression. In fact, cultural historian and essayist Geoffrey O’Brien once referred to the mixtape as “perhaps the most widely practiced American art form.” Beyond age or musical preferences, mixtapes champion the notion that we can all be greater than the sum of our parts when we’re free to express ourselves.

• If our submission is approved, National Mixtape Day would *coincidentally* fall on the anniversary of the date we founded our company in 2009. We originally launched as “TETON Austin” but changed our name just over a year later. The name “mixtape marketing” reflects our founders’ personal love of music and the high-touch, highly-personalized approach we take to every prospect and client. All that aside, the association with our company would be more of an ‘easter egg’ than anything intended to be front-and-center, in any way. The true/honest intended purpose of this submission is to celebrate art, artists and artistic expression – all things that are sadly being challenged and displaced in today’s society. (National Mixtape Day would genuinely be about something WAY bigger, cooler and more important than we think we are.)
• Source of Geoffrey O’Brien quote: https://www.thenation.com/article/unforgettable/

To submit your idea for a day to be recognized annually, go here: https://nationaldaycalendar.com/register-a-national-day/

We’ve been talking about this for years, but our pesky clients and their needs always seem to get in the way (love you). Well, it’s finally here. We’re thrilled (and relieved) to announce the official launch of makefuzzytracks.com, our official website dedicated to the unofficial music party we throw every year during a March music festival we officially can’t mention by name.

Stay tuned for new features / Enjoy for now!…

October 14, 2014, marks our five-year anniversary as an agency, and we can’t celebrate this milestone without pausing to reflect and give thanks.

We wouldn’t be here today without these fine folks:
– Paul Brown, who delivered the shit-or-get-off-the-pot ‘pep talk’ we needed to finally get started
– Craig Steckbeck and Wendy Mitchell, who’ve been a huge part of the mixtape family from the very beginning
– Dr. Paul Le, with whom we bartered for our first office space (an 8’x8’ exam room in his pain clinic that one of his patients later drove through, thankfully after we’d moved)
– Our wives, Leah and Aurora, whose continued patience, understanding and encouragement allow us to keep chasing this dream

Of course, so many others have been instrumental – We want to thank ALL of our clients, vendors, partners, friends and families.

We’ve built and continue to run this business our way. There’s oh so much more to that statement… but, above and beyond any financial aspirations, our sincerest hope is that everyone we’ve ever met or worked with feels they were treated fairly and with respect. We’re incredibly lucky to do what we love with people we love in the town we love most and feel genuinely blessed for every opportunity we’ve been afforded.

We’re humbled by the last five years and hungry for the next five…
– Ben & Charlie

P.S. We also want to thank the APD, who legitimized our office shindig and let us off with a warning when it got a little too loud for our neighbors.

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo this year by hiring an Irishman*. That’s how we roll… And now we roll one deeper. We’re thrilled to welcome Neil O’Reilly and his decade+ of SEO and web design/development experience to the mixtape family!

*To make matters even more culturally conflicting, his drink of choice is vodka — Go figure.

TETON Austin is now mixtape marketing. The new name is a lot more Austin and a lot more us. In addition to changing our name, we’ve formed an LLC and moved to a new Central Austin location.

As if that weren’t enough, we’re working feverishly to plan our very first music showcase and party, where we’ll formally unveil our new brand identity, including a brand spankin’ new website. Details to come.