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June 12, 2024

Feast Your Eyes

In the summer of 2023, the Fort Worth Zoo unveiled its highly anticipated Predators of Asia & Africa habitat, a stunning new home for lions, tigers and other apex predators. Partnering with the Zoo, we embarked on a mission to build excitement and drive attendance for this remarkable attraction in advance of the opening and throughout the following year.

Out of Home Fort Worth Zoo Predators Exhibit

Situation

Schaefer recommended a comprehensive campaign to promote the Fort Worth Zoo’s new exhibit, aiming to re-engage guests and boost summer attendance. The lions and tigers, which are visitor favorites, had been off-exhibit during construction, and it was crucial to highlight their return alongside the introduction of new species.

Predators Exhibit from the Fort Worth Zoo with Schaefer Advertising

Our Approach

We began with a collaborative naming exercise, unifying the two distinct sections of the habitat under one name, Predators of Asia & Africa. This cohesive identity set the stage for our creative strategy. From there, our team developed bold visuals that captured the fierce essence of the animals. The campaign featured striking imagery of lions and tigers, with claw-mark graphics to grab attention and convey the powerful nature of the predators. 

Predators Social Media Work by Schaefer Advertising for Fort Worth Zoo

The “Feast Your Eyes” headline led the campaign, playing on both the predatory nature of the animals and newly enhanced visibility of the experience This was complemented by headlines such as “The Pride Has Returned” and “On the Prowl Again,” emphasizing the return of the big cats. Equal focus was given to lions and tigers based on years of visitor data showing their popularity. We highlighted these hero animals to capture attention and strategically showcased additional species to convey the habitat’s diversity and breadth. This approach used the hero animals to attract interest and the variety of animals to convince visitors to explore the new exhibit. 

Predators Exhibit Out of Home for the Fort Worth Zoo

We generated excitement with teaser billboards that featured the claw marks and a “Coming Soon” message, quickly followed by the launch of an omnichannel campaign designed to captivate and engage. The Schaefer team employed a full-funnel media strategy, ensuring broad awareness and driving conversions through a mix of paid search, social media, programmatic display and video ads, email, and SMS texts. This comprehensive approach maximized our reach and engagement.

Results

  • Over one million landing page sessions, indicating high engagement and interest.
  • 28% click-through rate on paid social, showcasing the effectiveness of our targeted ads.
  • 42% year-over-year attendance growth, a testament to the campaign’s success in attracting visitors.
Predators Exhibit at the Fort Worth Zoo Bus Wrap

Our campaign for the Fort Worth Zoo’s Predators of Asia & Africa was a resounding success. By combining strategic creativity with a targeted media approach, we effectively highlighted the return of the Zoo’s beloved big cats and introduced new species, driving significant increases in attendance and revenue, and elevating the Zoo’s profile within the DFW metroplex and beyond. This project not only celebrated the Zoo’s commitment to conservation and education but also reinforced its position as a premier destination for family fun and learning.

The Fort Worth advertising community recently gathered at Backlot Studios to honor one of its most distinguished figures—our very own Ken Schaefer—recipient of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) Fort Worth’s Silver Medal Award. This prestigious award not only recognizes outstanding contributions to the advertising industry but more importantly, a commitment to the greater Fort Worth community.

His journey, which started at notable companies like Ogilvy and Procter & Gamble, have taught him that the importance of a people-first approach in everything from brand strategy to company culture. Under his guidance, Schaefer Advertising has flourished, making significant impacts in the Healthcare, Real Estate, and Attractions, Tourism and Arts sectors.

The event was full of camaraderie and storytelling, with colleagues and friends sharing defining moments that illustrate Ken’s career and more importantly his principles, painting the picture of a leader who is not only a master of his craft but also deeply committed to his faith, family, and community. 

In line with Ken’s driving purpose —to make life better—the evening also served a greater purpose; all proceeds from the event were donated to Good Natured, Mayor Parker’s Greenspace Initiative. This move was a fitting tribute to Ken’s dedication to enhancing the community where he lives in and serves.

The Silver Medal Award, established in 1959, is the highest honor the AAF can bestow and recognizes individuals who have not only achieved professional excellence but have actively furthered the industry’s standards and social responsibilities. Ken’s receipt of this award is a testament to his enduring impact on both the advertising world and the broader Fort Worth community.

And we couldn’t be prouder. 

Cheers to you, Ken!

Giving Kyzatrex® renewed energy and vibrance with a new brand campaign.

Kyzatrex Law Mower Hero

Situation

More than 20 million men deal with problems related to hypogonadism, or low testosterone. Many patients and HCPs have preconceived notions about diagnosis and treatment, and tend to focus solely on sexual health benefits. But low testosterone can also contribute to health problems ranging from mild issues such as fatigue, to severe problems including obesity, type 2 diabetes, CVD and mental illness.

Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is an emerging market that still falls to the bottom of the priority list for many HCPs. Despite its prevalence and chronicity, the diagnosis, administration and management of TRT remains a complex journey that, until Kyzatrex®, only came in painful, inconvenient or messy treatment options. Kyzatrex, however, brought an innovative new approach to the market by providing the option of helping patients address this important metabolic issue with a convenient daily oral dose — a difference that HCPs needed to be aware of.

Kyzatrex Heroes

Goals

  • Create a campaign that “cuts through the clutter” of prescriptive testosterone patches, gels, pills and injections
  • Develop brand messaging that resonates with both consumers and healthcare providers
  • Boost brand awareness rapidly
  • Establish metrics for gauging the success of the campaign

Strategy

Because HCPs and patients alike primarily equate testosterone primarily with sexual health, Kyzatrex needed to change the conversation. Research provided insights and understanding of the target’s mindset that led to a revelation: Kyzatrex delivers the total package — convenience and a therapeutic option for a critical metabolic health issue. More importantly, Kyzatrex helps HCPs and patients make more of their everyday lives and activities.

We tapped into the truth around this once mysterious condition and chose a path that took the emphasis off of sexual health. Instead, we turned the spotlight on how TRT impacts a patient’s everyday tasks. Through our creative approach, we made men heroes of their lives again, elevating the mundane into heroic feats. We engaged HCPs with images as dynamic as movie posters, glorifying the way the daily grind can actually be heroic when their patients feel like themselves again. And, with meaningful clinical data to back it up, we ensured the HCPs would be heroes, too.

Turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. Making mundane moments memorable. Framing the everyday as heroic. In short: Changing the conversation.

Kyzatrex Brochures

Results

Within a quarter of launching a bold, attention-grabbing campaign that used print, collateral, digital and social channels, the client was able to rapidly grab attention — and secure results. Among them included:

  • Generating a rapid spike in prescriptions
  • Inking a number of high-profile clinical agreements
  • Establishing an important co-marketing relationship with a leading telehealth company

Summary

The more competitive a market or communications space becomes, the more crucial it is to find ways to elevate a brand above the noise and clutter. In this case, a breakthrough shift to a differentiated brand personality embraced bigger, bolder graphics, allowing Kyzatrex to do exactly that. It also effectively engaged patients and HCPs in a highly human-centric way, positioning the client for greater success and to secure a larger share of this growing market.

Kyzatrex ads
April 17, 2024

Embrace the Unexpected

Growing tourism traffic in Fort Worth

Visit Fort Worth is the City partner responsible for powering economic development through tourism. They are tasked with representing the hospitality industry and sharing the Fort Worth story with and beyond the community, a large responsibility for a small and mighty team. Schaefer has gotten the honor to support the Visit Fort Worth team in a myriad of ways to help bring all that Fort Worth has to offer to visitors nationwide. 

Recently we developed a campaign to support the beloved Cultural District in Fort Worth, specifically beyond the metroplex focusing on promoting tourism via day trips or weekend trips from local drive markets. The Cultural District is unique in that it boasts more than 5 renowned and specialized museums all within walking distance of one another. This differentiator was key to our campaign. 

Go for the art. Stay for the wonder.  

There are many attractions and districts in Fort Worth for tourists to visit during their stay. While the Cultural District is rich in experience, it can be difficult to communicate all that it has to offer, specifically in short form. In order to increase foot traffic, specifically from drive markets, Schaefer developed a modular, multifaceted campaign signifying the initial draw, and amplifying the sustained value of your visit. 

Visit Fort Worth Out of Home

To appropriately frame the story of the Cultural District offerings, why you come and why you stay, we worked with the various museums and attractions to review available assets and create both still and video-based deliverables. 

We strategized an omnichannel media campaign to deploy across the primary markets of Austin, San Antonio and Houston, as well as our neighboring Dallas.  Our media approach spanned all tiers of the funnel and featured in-house programmatic and digital support paired with traditional mediums such as longer-form advertorials and video placements in localized publications and out of home. 

Visit Fort Worth Web and Email Marketing

Judging Success

If you’ve worked with Schaefer before, you know we are all about results. There are times, however, where those results are more challenging to track, specifically when awareness is a key indicator of performance (KPI). At the onset of the campaign we met with the Visit Fort Worth team to identify and align on our KPIs. 

With awareness from new visitors as the key performance indicator, Schaefer saw great success via our web metrics:

  • Page views increased – 407% YoY
  • Sessions increased – 835% YoY
  • New users increased – 958% YoY
April 16, 2024

A Membership to the Arts

Photo by Robert LaPrelle

Schaefer is a proud partner of the Kimbell Art Museum, having supported the museum in individual ticket sales and museum memberships for five years. Throughout our time together, we have led project-based initiatives like premiering the exhibitions to the community through unique, hands-on activations. We also support all digital media strategy and management throughout the year. 

A benefit to a long-term partner includes the compounded learnings that come from each year and every test. As we all know, the digital landscape is ever-evolving, and it is crucial for your campaigns to grow alongside it. 

Photo by Nic Lehoux

What’s Different?

As we closed out 2023, we reflected on what worked and what didn’t. The Kimbell offers museum-goers new exhibitions each year, and while each exhibition differs from one another, the timing stays somewhat regular. This allows us to test media strategies that overlap campaigns, such as brand or membership, with the peak season featuring new exhibitions. In 2023, we tested the use of higher awareness mediums combined with campaign overlap and tactic flighting to compare against 2022’s results.

We found that due to the name recognition of both the Kimbell and the renowned artists featured in the special exhibitions, awareness was less important in our target market. Therefore, we shifted our focus to conversion-based tactics for 2024. However, we also found that having our brand and membership campaigns ‘always on’ allowed for just the right amount of awareness to boost sales year over year. We applied these learnings to our 2024 plan and are eager to track performance as the year progresses.

Photo by Nic Lehoux

What Worked?

Another benefit of a partner like Schaefer is that we are always optimizing mid-campaign. We’re not waiting for end-of-year to review the campaigns, but constantly applying best practices and learnings to our live campaigns. Because of this, we saw significant growth and positive results in 2023: 

  • 180% website revenue growth YoY
  • 247% increase in revenue directly attributed to paid media
  • Over $8:1 annual return on ad spend (ROAS)

*Header photo by Nic Lehoux

Using BigFoot to tease a big reveal. 

Situation 

Within the eyecare industry, the idea of interventional glaucoma treatment has been categorized as an elusive myth for years. ViaLase developed a game-changing system designed to leverage two proven technologies to create a new, non-invasive approach to glaucoma. When this new system is approved by regulatory agencies, the myth will finally become a reality. Therefore, our client needed a campaign that would create attention and support a successful launch of the new concept.

Goals

  • Develop materials needed for a successful brand launch
  • Develop a highly visible campaign that would cut through the clutter of a crowded market 
  • Rapidly generate brand awareness
  • Explain the fundamental technology behind the device
  • Solicit interest and inquiries from qualified leads
  • Provide meaningful measurements of the campaign results

Strategy

Schaefer Advertising responded with a showstopping, attention-grabbing campaign that used teaser imagery of a Sasquatch, or “BigFoot”, creature to convey that the “mythical creature” was finally here – and real. The sheer uniqueness of the concept was a huge and dramatic departure from the cold, clinical ads embraced by other players in the industry. 

Solution

An integrated campaign was launched that included paid search, organic social, email, and digital display on well-known industry publications and websites. Each medium enabled the client to tell its story and document the response rates as viewers clicked through for downloads, demos and landing-page visits. 

Vialase yeti display ads

Results

By leveraging paid search and strategically-chosen publication placements (such as newsletters, e-blasts, ROS banners, and sponsored social posts), the campaign achieved noteworthy results within the first three months of launch.

  • Website tracking identified 98% new site visits, with an impressive 53% engagement rate
  • High clickthrough rates 
  • And, most importantly, awareness started with a bang, with healthy responses from an elite and highly-qualified audience of eyecare and glaucoma specialists
Sessions

15,864

New Users

13,771

Pageviews

17,130

Engagement Rate

53.42%

Vialase yeti print ads

Summary 

The launch campaign accomplished its primary goal of driving brand awareness among surgeons for ViaLase and its innovative design.  And, in addition to gaining insights into paid search performance, the client began to forge strategic partnerships with leading industry publications. The geographic spread and engagement metrics highlight the campaign’s effectiveness in reaching a qualified audience, setting a strong foundation for future marketing efforts.

Overall, the campaign was another example of Schaefer’s ability to combine solid knowledge of healthcare markets and attention-grabbing creativity to tell a cohesive and relevant brand story.

The Nutcracker ballet is a timeless performance that has delighted audiences for more than a century. Over time, it has cemented its place as a beloved holiday tradition and one of the most popular ballets of all time. Each holiday season, Texas Ballet Theater (TBT) stages 35 performances between Dallas and Fort Worth, which sets the tone for ticket sales throughout the season. For some ballet companies, sales from The Nutcracker make up more than 85% of a company’s ticket revenue for the season. While its popularity makes it easy to sell performance tickets, The Nutcracker also creates a unique opportunity to attract a broader audience to experience the art of ballet. 

As the agency of record for the past six years, Schaefer Advertising has helped TBT increase ticket sales year-over-year to make The Nutcracker a revenue powerhouse. Fresh off a record-setting year in 2022, TBT increased its goals for 2023. 

To meet the new goal, our team acted quickly to implement new optimizations that leveraged our current campaign assets, made strategic recommendations for TBT-owned channels, and proposed a few incremental options to get in front of new attendees. A peak-valley-peak approach to paid search led to higher revenue for lower costs, making paid search a key driver of conversion revenue. The coordinated email marketing campaign launched in late November ranked second in revenue generation. 

Texas Ballet Theater Nutcracker Assets

Results

The Nutcracker campaign concluded its 2023 run with record-breaking revenue and ticket sales, surpassing each previous year’s revenue and 2023 goals for both Dallas and Fort Worth. Total revenue closed at 120% to goal, with online sales specifically growing revenue by over 30% from last year.

2023 Goals

Revenue: $2,639,534
Ticket Sales: 36,080

2023 Actuals

Revenue: $3,237,384
Tickets Purchased: 47,056 

Campaign ROI

12:1

Texas Ballet Theater Social Media Assets
Texas Ballet Theater Display Posters
Texas Ballet Theater Nutcracker Website
Texas Ballet Theater Nutcracker Website Full Size
December 20, 2023

The Big Data Bowl of Life

Meet Andrew Lotz

Let’s start by getting to know you a little better. Tell us about yourself.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, raised in Saint Bernard Parish. Moved to Dallas after Hurricane Katrina and was recruited to play football at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. While in school, I adopted two dogs. Cookie, who I found in a parking lot of a Sonic, living off scraps, and Louis, who was given to me. I majored in Information Systems and Data Analytics for my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I enjoy the combination of creative problem solving and numbers.

In college, I was the General Manager of a brewery, whereI learned to brew beer and a lot about cooking. After graduating, I transitioned to a coaching role, serving as a QB assistant coordinator throughout grad school and eventually got hired by the Houston Texans to “turn numbers into colors,” which translates to leveraging data and analytics to learn more about their fans. 

I like to try new restaurants and discover new bars – preferably outdoor places with easy TV viewing. I watch a lot of football. No surprise. I like to find good bars. And I wants to visit every NFL stadium. So far, I’ve been to three. 

What’s something you love to do?

In no particular order: golf, pickleball and cooking.

Where is your favorite place?

New Orleans

What do you love about the job?

Continuous learning.

What is the last thing you binge-watched?

The Bear

What’s your favorite book?

Profiles in Courage

If you could live in any sitcom, which would it be?

Entourage, I’ve never been to California. 

Are you a listener or a talker?

Listener

If you had to eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Steak

If there weren’t any more computers, what would be your new occupation?

Football Coach

What’s the scariest thing you’ve done for fun?

Snuck into an abandoned orphanage.

What’s your favorite children’s story?

The Giver

If you had an extra hour of free time every day, what would you spend it doing?

Golfing

Any words of advice?

Failure is where growth happens.

Why Schaefer?

The company culture and opportunity to develop. 

For more about Andrew, check his bio.

December 13, 2023

The Foundation for Good

The North Texas Community Foundation (NTCF) is a Fort Worth-based philanthropic organization committed to driving meaningful change through charitable investment in North Texas. With a strong reputation, deep community knowledge, and tailored services, NTCF helps high-net-worth individuals structure their philanthropic giving for immediate impact and long-term legacy.

Logotype

Challenge

As a central figure in the community with a wide range of audiences and causes, NTCF needed a way to articulate their offerings to specific audience sets with very different wants while positioning their own brand for growth. In addition, they needed to improve their user experience online to better meet the demands of visitors.

North Texas Community Foundation Website

Tailoring the message

NTCF is beholden to not one but three separate audiences – fundholders who support charitable giving, professional financial advisors whom NTCF partners with to manage donor funds, and nonprofit leaders who leverage grants and gifts to proactively respond to the needs within the community. While the driving purpose and service offering are the same across all partners and clients, it’s crucial to shape messaging around the intended audience. 

Brand Family for North Texas Community Foundation

We started the process by first establishing a brand archetype – NTCF is a Caregiver – and letting that lead to a clear and compelling brand position and purpose. This step helped cement NTCF’s mission to drive meaningful change, unify the internal team and motivate all partners to advance toward a shared future. Next, we tailored key messages to resonate with the distinct needs and priorities of each audience. From cross-functional partners to clients and community stakeholders, brand messaging is tailored to the unique perspectives of each audience. 

Flyer for NTCF

Design with a growth mindset

To further illustrate the Caregiver archetype, we evolved the brand identity to better mirror the trust, support and service NTCF is known to provide. From logo to photographic styling, we created a comprehensive design system that perfectly encapsulates the brand’s dynamic service offering. The vibrant yet strong color palette features navy, periwinkle and complementary shades of yellow, orange and blue to balance optimistic and approachable with the more intuitive and assertive sides of the NTCF brand. In addition, we expanded creative assets to offer more versatility and the ability to grow with the brand. 

NTCF Brochures

Creating a seamless experience

A website acts as a front door to your organization, and NTCF could benefit from a more inviting user experience.  The previous website structure was dense and the navigation was choppy, leading to confusion and cognitive overload for site visitors. On the back end, employees lacked the ability to easily create, modify and publish content. 

NTCF Website

To provide current and potential fundholders with an enhanced experience, we restructured the new site to reduce page count, minimize clicks and better guide visitors to the information they were seeking. We also developed a custom content management platform, empowering the internal team with the tools needed to edit and manage their site without extensive coding knowledge.

NTCF Website Pages

Results

Developing an impactful brand strategy and tailoring every message to suit the intended audience allowed NTCF to better communicate their purpose and address a multifaceted branding challenge from a foundational level. The new brand identity also aligns each audience with the overarching vision of NTCF and positions the brand for success and growth. 

A more intuitive website improved the user journey while empowering the internal team with the ability to easily develop and manage brand materials and content. When compared to the previous year, the new website saw outstanding results:

  • 28% increase in visitors 
  • 7% reduction in bounce rate, illustrating users found the site more relevant
  • 21.7% increase in page views, indicating stronger user engagement post site launch

Data measured from Feb 2021-Aug 2021 and Feb 2022-Aug 2022.

December 13, 2023

A Year of Triumphant Splendor

Direct Mail - Texas Ballet Theater

Setting the Stage for Success

Every year, Texas Ballet Theater (TBT) launches a season filled with a combination of performance styles, from mixed repertoires to storybook ballets to the beloved holiday tradition, The Nutcracker. And each year, the organization builds revenue goals based on factors such as previous success, attrition, new-to-file trends, name recognition and more. In the last few years, all performing arts organizations have been rebuilding after, for some, more than a year of no programming. It is more critical than ever that these goals be met, which is a challenge we do not take lightly.

Texas Ballet Theater Emails

Benefits of a Integrated Campaign

As TBT’s agency of record for over five years, we have the pleasure of guiding the organization strategically through a merriment of creative and media targeting each year. This level of integration is ideal, as it allows the team to work on one cohesive plan for success and be proactive with optimizations along the way. We cannot overstate the importance of messaging, design and ad placement all aligning to drive success.

With a robust overarching season revenue goal as well as individual performance goals, we knew this year needed to be on point. Pun intended.

Type Treatments - A Year of Splendor Texas Ballet Theater
Texas Ballet Theater Brochure - A Year of Splendor

A New Creative Solution

Each year we establish the creative concept for the season which reflects the individual performances, incorporates artistic direction from TBT and provides a consistent look for the entire season. This season, we created custom typography for each performance title to elevate the distinct nature of each performance and provide an additional asset that incorporated elements from the storyline or theme of each ballet. The titles were paired with a wash of color for each performance, and when viewed together created a vibrant kaleidoscope that reflected the varied nature of the range of performances. The ability to utilize a key color and title treatment to support individual performance campaigns beyond dancer imagery alone gave our team a broader range of assets to leverage across mediums.

Texas Ballet Theater - Alice in Wonderland Social Assets
The Nutcracker Performance for Texas Ballet Theater

What We’ve Learned

A benefit of the tenure of our relationship with TBT is that we are able to learn more and evolve every year. We always tell new clients that they are the experts in their field, and we are here to learn and assist. But as we learn more year over year, we build industry expertise that becomes invaluable.

What we continue to see is that video outperforms static ads, which is no surprise when you are promoting a moving art form. We also know that the more digital assets you have, the more opportunities you have to improve visibility, engagement and the overall effectiveness of each deliverable. Video content can be costly to produce, so we focused on creative solutions that maximized the available resources. By incorporating animation, we were able to support each performance with repeatable textures that expand our campaign assets.

Because of this, we were able to produce more formats and sizes to test against each other by incorporating animations and movement in post production. Additionally, we chose to sunset some static ad units in order to focus on video.

Enhancing Ticket Sales

From a media perspective, we adjusted flighting to focus on awareness tactics early and conversion tactics during peak ticket sales, which is traditionally within the final weeks of the promotion.

We also implemented an institutional campaign throughout the year to boost awareness and increase website sessions unrelated to ticket purchases, which in turn allowed our retargeting pools to grow and improve our ticket sale campaigns.

Texas Ballet Theater Season on the Website

Where We Landed

While we are delighted to see the success of last year come through, it was with intention that our team set out to achieve and surpass these revenue and new ticket buyer goals. The Year of Splendor proved to be successful all season long, seen most notably in The Nutcracker & Alice in Wonderland performances, where goals in both Dallas and Fort Worth were exceeded.

  • Final revenue exceeded annual goals by 24%
  • Final revenue increased from previous year by 25%
  • Opening the season with a new work (which is inherently more challenging to sell due to no name recognition), ROAS was 5:1
  • The Nutcracker in Dallas finished at over 140% to goal
  • The season closed with Alice in Wonderland which had almost 10,000 patrons attend clearing goals by over 30%

Promoting a new season each year has its fair share of challenges, and that’s what keeps us going. We’re proud to be a long-standing partner of Texas Ballet Theater and can’t wait to share in their continued success for years to come.

The Nutcracker Signage and Emails for Texas Ballet Theater
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