The annual Fort Worth Zoo Ball is their largest fundraising event of the year in support of the nonprofit, privately owned zoo. This is an elite affair put on by a committee of top Zoo donors who rely on Schaefer to help execute the annual theme. For 2014, the theme was inspired by the annual Festival of the Elephants in Jaipur, India. The central piece was to be a high-end invitation that would make Fort Worth’s elite excited about coming to the ball.
The Work
Our first step was immerse ourselves in Indian culture (via Google and World Market rather than the subcontinent itself, sadly). Through colors, textiles, patterns we began to get a good sense of direction for the piece. If only we had a designer who was really into elephants. Maybe one who has an elephant pen and mug and figurines all over her desk. Oh, right. Blair.
This theme was tailor-made for designer Blair Babineaux, whose love of elephants (and good design) made her the obvious one to take the lead. Both of these loves were apparent in the final result.
Describing the details of this piece would take approximately forever, but here are some highlights (or you could just look at the picture, right?). The six-panel invitation is printed on a thick pearlescent paper that was flooded with red on one side. Each unique panel was intricately laser cut by the folks at Artifacture in Dallas. Once folded, the invitation was secured with a die-cut bellyband featuring even more laser-cut elephants. The metallic gold envelopes were beautifully hand addressed by Lauren of Blue Eye Brown Eye calligraphy using a custom-mixed ink.
All told, we partnered with six different vendors to make our vision come to life (each of whom might lock the door when they see us coming next time).
The Results
The event was a big success, and the invitation was unanimously well received. Eight-foot replicas of the invitation panels were used as decorations at the Ball, and the chairwoman of the planning committee said, “This is my favorite invitation yet. I’m not sure how we’ll top it next year.”
We don’t know either, but, as always, we’ll seek what’s possible. Even if it does give us all gray hair.
UPDATE:
Schaefer was awarded a gold national Addy for the 2014 Zoo Ball invitation. This is our first national Addy award, and to give it some context, we were one of only 77 gold winners out of 40,000 entries. Needless to say, we’re proud and excited to represent Fort Worth among some of the top agencies in the country.
Founded in 1984, Presbyterian Night Shelter is a non-profit organization that does more than just provide a place to sleep. Through a variety of services, they help clients on the journey from homeless to home. With new services being added and new building projects underway, they came to Schaefer for rebranding and fundraising materials.
The open door logo was birthed out of a game of catch in the side yard. That probably had nothing to do with it, but it’s how we got the creative juices flowing. While the door is symbolic of the roof Presbyterian Night Shelter provides to the homeless, it’s also a symbol of permanent housing, which is the goal for everyone who stays there. For many, the Night Shelter is the only door open to them. But there’s hope on the other side.
Another aspect of the project was fundraising materials for a new women and children’s housing project on the Night Shelter property. While the original ask was for printed materials, we looked at the fundraising goals as well as the potential donor base and decided that a video would be the most effective way to go.
Filmed on a shoestring budget by our, at that time, brand-new friends at 1820 Productions, the video sought to convey a single, powerful idea: home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling. As you hear businessmen and women, professionals and even someone who is currently homeless talk about home, the specifics might be different, but the feeling is universal. Punctuating it all is the surprising statistic that 85% of homeless people don’t stay that way.
Homelessness is a curable condition. And we’re proud to help Presbyterian Night Shelter in their mission to end homelessness in Tarrant County.
For Moncrief Cancer Institute’s Future of Academic Medicine event, we used a silver foil on two types of paper to create an upscale invitation. The main imagery on the sleeve is a line rendering of their building, which stands out well from the blue background. The use of silver foil in the negative space of the invitation also created a striking effect.
When Nolan Ryan Beef made Kroger their exclusive retailer, they asked us to help generate awareness for this partnership while driving customers to Kroger stores to buy beef. With a limited marketing budget, we had to get creative if we were going to make a splash in a market the size of the DFW Metroplex. Luckily, “getting creative” is kind of our thing.
The Work
If there’s anything more creative than pairing up NOLAN RYAN Beef and the Texas Rangers, we don’t know what it is. So instead of sinking their marketing dollars into traditional advertising media, we recommended that they pursue a sponsorship with the Texas Rangers. They didn’t have the budget to be a top sponsor in the Ballpark, but we helped them make the most of what they could afford.
With Nolan Ryan Beef as the official beef sponsor of the Texas Rangers, we felt that someone needed to be the official spokesman of Nolan Ryan Beef. Enter Howdy the Hot Dog. Born from a dry erase marker and a window, this guy could be seen everywhere you looked in the Ballpark: concession stand signage, hawker boxes, Jumbotron and more. We even helped design an entire concession stand. We made it virtually impossible to miss Nolan Ryan Beef.
The Results
In the first year of the sponsorship, the Texas Rangers sold more hot dogs than any other ballpark in Major League Baseball. Nolan Ryan Beef doubled their sales with Kroger and even saw a spike in sales in their online direct sales. Answering the question, what’s more American than hot dogs and baseball? Cartoon hot dogs and baseball.
When the Fort Worth Zoo tells you they’ve got something big coming, you naturally go think elephant, giraffe, hippo – that kind of thing. Not even close. This time it was bugs. Enormous, animatronic bugs that moved, flapped, hissed and even sprayed. Thirteen of them would be located throughout the park to greet visitors who thought the lions and snakes would be the scariest animals they were going to see that day. Schaefer was tasked with creating a name, identity and marketing materials for the exhibit. Most of us were fine with it. Certain people were less than enthused to learn of the existence of a car-sized spider in Fort Worth – even if it was a robot.
The Work
For the name of the exhibit, we went with GIGANTABUGS!, which was fun and playful but still conveyed exactly what people were in for. And since these bugs were larger than life, our marketing materials had to be “GIGANTA,” too. Our TV spot featured a variety of enormous bug shadows invading well-known Fort Worth spots. To further tease the exhibit, we applied ten-foot bug decals to a three-story building and the sidewalk in front of a busy grocery store.
The Results
This wouldn’t be a case study if our marketing didn’t work, so you probably saw this coming. Our TV spot and guerilla efforts received positive feedback and a lot of social shares leading up to the exhibit. And during the months the exhibit was open, Zoo attendance surpassed their goals by 5%.
Our friends over at TCU Baseball finished the regular season strong with a 38-15 record (17-7 in the Big 12). The Frogs will be the No. 2 seed going into the Big 12 Tournament. Good luck in the tournament and congrats on a great season!
The theme for this year’s Zoo Preschool is animal markings and habitats. And because the whole point of the preschool is to teach young kids about animals, we decided to make the direct mail piece interactive and educational. The piece featured a soft, natural color palate and a fun illustrated style, which was carried out across all media including the campers’ t-shirts. Any day we get to to create cartoon animals is a good day. And from the photos, it would appear these preschoolers found their favorite spot at the Fort Worth Zoo.
An opthamology practice with five physicians, Nethery Eye Associates tasked the Schaefer team to develop an integrated marketing plan to increase patient traffic in light of a more competitive marketplace. We evaluated and refreshed their current branding to support these marketing efforts and executed the refreshed brand in a website, collateral and other patient education tools, and an online media campaign.
Educational Video Series
for Nethery Eye Associates
WayPoint Healthcare Advisors is a healthcare consulting firm in Fort Worth, Texas led by two senior level executives, each with 20+ years of experience in healthcare consulting. Faced with a rapidly changing healthcare environment, WayPoint Healthcare Advisors needed to evaluate their marketing initiatives. We worked with the WayPoint leadership to develop new branding and marketing materials to support public relation initiatives. This logo was initially launched through email marketing and a new website.
JPS Foundation is a non-profit arm of John Peter Smith Hospital that helps raise money for things the hospital budget doesn’t cover such as baby supplies for low-income women, clothes for the homeless and medicines for those who can’t afford them.
When it came time for their annual employee giving campaign, they came to us with a challenge. Donations had been in decline for several years, as well as the number of employees who were donating. Employee involvement is an important metric when applying for funding, so it was up to us to bring the numbers up.
The Work
When you think of fundraisers for non-profits, you might think about the poster board thermometer that is gradually filled in with red sharpie. When the goal is a large sum of money, it can easily feel like the dollar or two you have to spare won’t make much of a dent. Since we needed as many people to participate as possible, we had to overcome this perception.
Our idea was to show that a small donation—even as little as a dollar—could actually have a real impact. That’s because many of the things JPS Foundation provides, such as a pair of socks or a pedometer, cost very little. We called the campaign Small Change, Big Impact and used a series of four videos to show how even inexpensive items could make a big difference in a person’s life.
The Results
It’s clear that JPS employees took the message to heart. JPS Foundation raised over $200,000 as a result of this campaign, up from $95,000 the previous year. The number of employees who participated also rose from 685 to 1019 in one year. And while it’s always great to see that a campaign worked, we’re most proud of the real, life-changing impact those stats represent.
