September 3, 2013

J.L. Matthews Rebrand

J.L. Matthews Co. is a third generation family-owned business based in Fort Worth that specializes in top-of-the-line safety equipment and apparel for lineman and arborists. They recently came to us with the challenge of updating their brand without losing the history and values that still shape the company today.

Founded in 1946 by Joe L. Matthews, their main focus remains the same: provide top-notch, personal customer service with an emphasis on training and safety. With such a deep family history, it was fun to get to know their business on a more personal level. Old family photos showed what it was like back when Joe Matthews was creating custom leather harnesses in his small, cluttered workshop.

Our goal was to update the brand to make it relevant to their current customers without losing the heritage and family values that continue to set them apart.

Since safety is the most important facet of their business, we began by shifting the brand color from red to a safety orange. For a family of Red Raider fans, this wasn’t an easy decision, but it proved to be the right one.
The logo features the company name with emphasis placed on “Matthews” since that resonated most with existing customers. Date and location were added as secondary elements, and the shield shape conveys strength, which represents the industry and those who work in it.

August 30, 2013

This is just the beginning

We created this spot for TCU last summer for their inaugural season in the Big 12. With TCU’s first game tomorrow against LSU it felt like a good time to post the spot. We were very proud to work with TCU on this project and be apart of the historic moment for the university.

August 26, 2013

Reverse litter

In an effort to bring awareness to the consequences that littering can have on Metroplex waterways, our client Tarrant Regional Water District (TRWD) partnered with several cities in the DFW Metroplex to develop a campaign called Reverse Litter.

Our campaign featured four :15 TV spots that aimed at showing how litter on land ultimately ends up in our waterways. Every bit of these TV spots are real (no CGI animation was used), which made for a lot of planning to ensure we could create seamless transitions from scene to scene.
Click on the screenshots to view each spot, or learn more about our Reverse Litter campaign by clicking here.

Each spot focuses on the most frequently found litter in our waterways: aluminum cans, styrofoam cups, plastic bottles and plastic bags.

The emphasis of the campaign is that accidents do happen and you can unintentionally litter even when you don’t really mean to. Luckily, we can all be a part of the solution and help reverse litter by being more mindful of our actions and by lending a helping hand and picking up litter that you find near your home, office, school, street or playground.

August 22, 2013

Ryan Family Showdown

It’s not every day you get to work with the presidents of TWO different Major League Baseball teams, but on this special day our agency had the great opportunity to hang out with the entire Ryan family at their ranch to shoot this TV spot for Nolan Ryan Beef. We can’t say enough about the hospitality and kindness of the entire Ryan family, it was truly a project I will never forget working on.
An overview of the spot:
Texas Rangers president and Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan faces off with his son, Reid Ryan, president of the Houston Astros, to see who is the master of the grill. In the end, Dad knows best, but the entire Ryan family wins and enjoys a family picnic featuring Nolan Ryan Beef.
-Nick

August 20, 2013

The Story of Schaefermade

By now, any of you who were curious about all of our Schaefermade Facebook posts from a couple months ago (not to mention the bright yellow building next to our office) might have thought we would never tell the story of Schaefermade. Sorry about that. We got busy, and, well, you know how it is.

So what was the deal with all that? Well, twice a year, Fort Worth holds an event called Arts Goggle during which artists display their work in local businesses. It’s a city-wide event, but most of the fun goes on near our office on Magnolia.

Each year for the Spring Arts Goggle, we try to think of a way to participate and engage the crowds who flock to our neighborhood. Our goal is to find a way to differentiate our booth from the businesses, artists and vendors at the Near Southside Arts Goggle event while building awareness for Schaefer Advertising Co. in the community.

This year, we decided (with the help of former interns Darcie Nicholson and Elizabeth Kahn) to do an over-the-top version of the classic summertime lemonade stand. We’d create a pop-up lemonade stand for the day of the event, then use our advertising and PR skillz to get the word out. The lemonade would be free, and all donations would go to Fort Worth Southside’s tree planting initiative.

With this theme in mind, we kind of went nuts. Donkeys have their carrot. Schaeferites have their lemon.

– Art director Charlie Howlett put a lemon on a skewer so he could hold it over people’s faces and take LemonHead portraits of everyone in the office, which he then posted to the Schaefermade Instagram page.

– The lemon on the skewer led to some impromptu side yard antics, which we filmed and posted on Facebook.

– Obviously, our lemonade stand needed a mascot. Just as obvious to us, that mascot was going to be Account Supervisor Nick Bendian. We ordered the costume, then filmed Nick dancing around and in the middle of Magnolia to make another teaser video, which we also posted on Facebook.

– The Schaefer team hung lemons from trees up and down Magnolia Street. A tag on these lemons teased our upcoming lemonade stand and directed people to tag a photo of the lemon on Instagram. For every photo tagged, Schaefer donated $1 to the tree-planting initiative.

– We created window displays the week before the event to tease the lemonade stand.

– And last but not least, we had the building painted bright yellow the day before the event. People couldn’t believe we went to all that trouble for a one-day event, and we took it as a compliment. To us, doing things the right way is always worth the effort.

Our lemonade stand was a big success. In fact, we ran out of cups long before the event shut down. (Sorry if you didn’t get any lemonade!) Nick danced his heart out for about four hours, losing several pounds of water weight, getting lots of smiles and even posing for a few photos. A good time was had by all.

Here’s the breakdown:

– Distributed 1,250 Schaefermade-branded cups of lemonade
– Increased our social community of followers that engaged with the brand
– Had almost 750 views of two short videos created prior to the event
– Gained 30 new likes to the Schaefer Facebook page in less than two weeks
– Increased our followers on Instagram by over 30 people in 10 day period
– Raised $529.33 for the Fort Worth South Inc. Tree Planting Initiative
– Gained visibility and goodwill in the community
– Built teamwork and camaraderie among Schaefer employees

August 19, 2013

Croppin’ Up

In anticipation of the Clearfork Main Street Bridge opening, which would open up traffic through Clearfork for the first time, we wanted to develop on-site signage that would call motorists’ attention to sheer size of the land and tease what was to come.

Rather than putting up traditional banners or billboard signage, we created a concept that used larger than life words to describe the soul of Clearfork. The words were placed at strategic points on the property and were made to appear as if they had grown out of the land. Thus, we referred to the project internally as the Clearfork word crops.

August 19, 2013

Croppin’ up

In anticipation of the Clearfork Main Street Bridge opening, which would open up traffic through Clearfork for the first time, we wanted to develop on-site signage that would call motorists’ attention to sheer size of the land and tease what was to come.

Rather than putting up traditional banners or billboard signage, we created a concept that used larger than life words to describe the soul of Clearfork. The words were placed at strategic points on the property and were made to appear as if they had grown out of the land. Thus, we referred to the project internally as the Clearfork word crops.

August 13, 2013

Predict. Prevent. Extend.

For over 40 years, Win-Sam has been making energy production plants run better and last longer. Their motto is simple: Predict, Prevent, Extend. Through extensive predictive and preventive maintenance strategies, they can increase operational efficiency and extend the life of your equipment.
Since a lot of Win-Sam employees are former Navy men, we went with a military style logo for their rebrand. This insight, combined with the industrial look of their everyday work environment, helped establish a look that we carried out through several pieces. Each of these pieces conveys the strong, roll-up-their-sleeves kind of work ethic that makes Win-Sam so valuable to their clients.

August 9, 2013

Out of This World

The headlining band at this year’s Beastro – a food tasting and live music event at the Fort Worth Zoo – was Starship. Creative director Todd Lancaster decided to take it in a Close Encounters of the Third Kind direction, and it turned out to be the winning concept. (Despite the illustration, no giraffes were served as food at this event.)
Along with more traditional media like outdoor, direct mail and banner ads, we went guerrilla on this project as well. We created a stencil based on Todd’s artwork along with spray chalk to advertise the event on Fort Worth sidewalks. The cans of spray chalk say they’re wash off in a week or so. The fact that we could still see them several months after the event had ended would indicate otherwise. Oops.
Anyway, the event was a lot of fun, Starship rocked the party and a ton of Fort Worth food fans got to stuff their faces and make new friends.

August 5, 2013

Schaefer Advertising Co.

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