Case Study #1: NO GOOD NAME

Client ABC Builder came to us after having spent more than $20,000 with a marketing firm in Montana that gave him a beautiful new logo, a tagline and a one page website. Yes, you read that correctly. $20,000 for a logo, tagline and one page website. I asked “How could you spend that much on those three things?” His answer….”phone calls.” Yikes!

Anyway Mr. ABC wanted us to build a 12-month strategy for his business, which we did. In the “war-room” (the creative session where all of the creative team and the client meet to go over the details of the plan), the first question asked was “Why are you ABC Builders?” We informed him that there was an ABC Builder in every state in the country and asked if he was part of a chain or a franchise; he said no, it was just him. The client informed us his former girlfriend came up with the name. We told him that people who were looking for a national chain or franchise and called him would not hire him, because it was just him, and people who didn’t want a national chain or franchise wouldn’t call him at all. So his name was in fact working against him. Although we did not include a new brand and identity in his strategy (afterall, he had just paid $20,000 for a new one, how were we to know they never even asked him why he was named what he was), it turned out that was the first thing we did for this client. Oh, and the tagline. It was garbage and not something that this client was ever going to say. Instead we gave him three words that describe the hallmarks of his business that he could work into conversation anyway that felt comfortable to him.

The client ended up with a new company name, a new tagline, a new logo, a new website and a 12-month strategy and all for less than $20,000!

Case Study #2: TEN YEARS AND NO PROTECTION

I received a call from a client I had done business with in a previous enterprise, and she informed me that she thought she might need some marketing stuff. I put together about 80 questions to begin building a strategy for her business and as the answers came in I noticed something interesting. This client is an eye doctor inside of Costco. In my Q&A it was revealed that Costco has a “no cause” kick-out clause in their contracts. So my question to my client was this “If you were to be kicked out, would your patients know how to find you or do they just think of you as the Costco eye doc?” Hmmmmm.

So the first thing we did was to build her brand, completely separate and distinct from Costco. The building of her brand has been so successful that she now has the capability to set up her practice absolutely anywhere. She even has the option to franchise, should she to. She is now completely protected and all of her hard work and efforts are reflecting on her as they should be.

Case Study #3: STOLEN IDENTITY

We were referred to a company by a business consultant who determined that marketing was more of the client’s immediate need. The client engaged us to produce a 24-month strategy. The first order of business for us was to explain why they needed to change their logo and imagery. The company is a dry cleaner and they operate solely on a pick-up and delivery basis, so they dispatch trucks over a fairly large geographic area. The problem was the owner had decided to use the wedding photo of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Will and Kate. So there are a couple of problems with this: 1. These are living people who did not give their permission for their likeness to appear on the side of dry cleaning trucks; 2. The photographer who took the photograph did not grant permission for use; 3. The image has nothing to do with dry cleaning. We recommend that we create a proprietary character that the business would own and could use in a variety of situations. By using an animal rather than a person no ethnic or age group is targeted or excluded. So Mr. Majestic was born and a problem was solved.

Case Study #4: THE FARAWAY CLIENTS

We were hired to work with a language academy that was a franchise out of Australia that was having trouble getting a foothold in the American marketplace. After meeting with the franchise owners it became clear that the model which was successful in Australia was going to be a difficult pitch in the American culture. The existing model was to recruit clients from overseas to come to the US to learn English, or teach Americans how to teach English overseas. Luckily some things changed within the franchise and the local franchise owners were able to split off and restructure their business. After several strategy sessions we came up with a new name, tagline and new business model that targeted foreign nationals that are already living and working in the US. The Owner of the business developed a program no one else is offering to overseas clients and can still leverage their overseas contacts while taking advantage of local opportunity.