Schaefer Advertising Co.

Case Studies

October 15, 2020

We get by together

The Near Southside is made up of a diverse kaleidoscope of local professionals working in the culinary, arts, entertainment, retail, and service industries. These people and the establishments where they worked were hit particularly hard when the pandemic hit. So, the Near Southside created the Southside C.A.R.E.S Fund, which directly benefits these Near Southside community members. 

Goals

  • Awareness campaign to raise $10,000, which will be matched dollar for dollar by a benefactor
  • Concert stream to raise $50,000 during contribution push

The Campaign

We were tasked with generating awareness and excitement for the Fund to encourage more donations to the artist and service industry members that make up the fabric of the Near Southside community. We created the tagline “We Get By Together,” which illustrates the central message of the campaign and nods to the primary goal of the Fund – caring for our neighbors living and working in the Near Southside.

The Southside C.A.R.E.S Fund serves two important purposes: to generate awareness of the fund, and encourage donations from a wider audience of people who live, work or play in the area. We began raising awareness for the C.A.R.E.S Fund with a social media campaign. It had to be colorful, easy to read, and hyper-share-worthy to encourage community participation, which was central to the campaign’s overall success. 

We built a landing page that acted as an informational hub and a place where people could contribute to the fund and find out more about how to apply for aid. The landing page lives at wegetbytogether.com – another nod to the reality that everyone is facing the pandemic, and we’re each in this fight together.

The Concert – Leon Bridges Live from the Southside

As the campaign unfolded the focus shifted from the website, to a free, live-streaming concert put on at Kent & Co. Wines by Near Southside residents Leon Bridges and Abraham Alexander. Both artists graciously donated their time and work to continue to raise money for the Southside C.A.R.E.S Fund. The concert directed people back to the website and encouraged more community support.

Concert Results

  • More than 7,000 unique viewers on the live stream from all over the world, including Russia, the Netherlands, and Egypt
  • Exceeded concert fundraising goal of $50,000

A Success for Our Community

The Southside C.A.R.E.S Fund was a rousing success and smashed the initial contribution goals. Thanks to the generous support of Marilyn and Marty Englander, every contribution to the Southside C.A.R.E.S. Fund was matched dollar-for-dollar up to 10K. This means donations doubled in impact. But the Fund would not have been as successful without tremendous community support.

Campaign Results to Date

  • More than $143,588 raised
  • 1,980 individual donors
  • 569 grants awarded

Looking Forward

As we continue to cope with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Southside C.A.R.E.S. is committed to supporting the district and the people who make it up. As a member of the community, it is our honor to help the Near Southside raise awareness and support for people in our community.

To contribute to the Southside C.A.R.E.S Fund, visit https://wegetbytogether.com/

Made Possible by Neighbors & Friends

This campaign and community concert would not have been possible without the incredible support and contributions from some of our local partners. Their generous donations and dedication of time and energy brought this fund to life and has helped improve the lives of people living in the Near Southside.

Kent & Co.

Near Southside Inc.

Marilyn and Marty Englander

Leon Bridges 

Abraham Alexander

 

October 13, 2020

We create community

Legacy. Capability. Values. Intention. These are big ideas that drive everything Hillwood Communities builds for the communities they create. So, when Hillwood needed a brand refresh and updated messaging, we leaned hard into these core tenets to accurately summarize the massive impact Hillwood has on the communities they build and the people who live there every single day. We needed to communicate these central beliefs in a cohesive and convincing brand brochure that would attract home buyers and investors.

Updated Messaging

When creating updated messaging for Hillwood, we expanded on the word “community” to accurately define the effect that Hillwood has on each of its developments. “We Create Community,” is the direction that we decided upon for the updated brand messaging. From Live Smart amenities to featuring a community garden, Hillwood takes extra steps to make each development a unique place to call home. More than that, Hillwood’s offering of communities, each with their own natural aesthetic and intrinsic values, ensures that there’s a Hillwood Community for every new homebuyer.

A Refreshed Brand Brochure

The Hillwood corporate brochure is where homebuyers and investors can interact with the Hillwood brand on a more extensive level. It needs to convince investors that Hillwood is an excellent investment opportunity and communicate to homebuyers that there is a community waiting for them underneath the Hillwood brand.

Evolved Brand Identity

Hillwood is a pioneer within the community development space. Each community they build focuses on elevating the quality, innovation and sense of community for their homeowner, offering unparalleled conveniences, all while taking subtle and grandiose steps to harbor a real sense of community among the neighborhood. Beyond the amenities that they create for their homeowners, Hillwood emphasizes the natural beauty of the land that they build on and rely on its inherent attraction as a central selling point. Every single step is taken with incredible intention aimed at improving the life of each resident.

The brochure connects all of these points by giving a detailed overview of each Hillwood Community and featuring evocative imagery of the natural aesthetics that define each community. Beyond the physical characteristics that define each community, we used imagery that captured the shared experiences and everyday interactions the amenities and walkways create. Each of these visual stories creates a compelling argument for why new home buyers should call a Hillwood community “home.” 

For potential investors, the legacy of pioneering big ideas and sparking engagement are enticing selling points that illustrate the long term and historical health of Hillwood Communities, which makes it a desirable investment. Sharing the story of Hillwood’s success and legacy right up front, aided by the visuals illustrating where Hillwood operates communicates the strength of the brand and implicitly tells investors that this is a worthy investment.

Covid-19 has changed everything and college football has not been immune to the impact of the pandemic. We partnered with TCU Athletics to expand on the tradition of the Riff Ram Video and create a hype video during the first-ever, socially-distant TCU football season. During normal circumstances, this hype video would run in the stadium to invigorate the audience, but under quarantine protocols, fans cannot attend the games and cheer their Frogs to victory. So, how can you inspire fans at home to leave their seats and chant along to “Riff, Ram, Bah, Zoo?” By connecting them.

The video begins by nodding to the new reality of the fan experience. Football is part of the fabric of American life, Zoom is too now. Showing fans in the Zoom space and having them breaking the grid is a fun way to show that no matter where you Riff Ram, you’re cheering with s fans across ages, places and even a pandemic. Despite the virtual barriers (and real ones presented by pandemic quarantine protocols), we’re always connected as a part of the TCU fandom family.  

The video illustrates to fans that we aren’t really that far from each other. From the athletes and students, to the family watching at home, we’re all living under a new normal. And while we can’t gather in person, we can find solidarity and spirit in the fact that we’re all in this together. 

Director’s Note:

Creating this video during the Covid-19 pandemic was a challenge that required our team to solve problems that we’d never confronted before. The big question was, “how can we keep everyone safe while producing an effective video that serves campaign goals?”

The entire spot was shot on a green screen with all but two shots featuring one person at a time. Every background was added in post and every action and camera move had to be planned out prior to filming. Each crew member wore masks while we were working, and the only unmasked people in the studio were the on-screen talent. We booked each of the actors with their own timeslot to minimize their exposure to others. However, this made each studio session incredibly valuable as we could not invite the actors back for re-shoots later.

The game plan for this shoot was nearly as planned, practiced and choreographed as Gary Patterson’s defense (almost). 

The shoot was difficult, but the team at Red Productions made collaborating on such a meticulous production much easier,  more enjoyable and pretty impactful!

Go Frogs!

Credits:

Concept by: Schaefer Advertising Co. 
Produced by: Schaefer Advertising Co. and Red Productions.

Cancer. The word is enough to halt most in their tracks.

It is a disease that affects us all and we will each witness someone live with during our lifetime. This biological villain seems to be impossible to vanquish completely. But sometimes our heroes need us to help support their mission, to rise up as a community and prove that our collective efforts can result in a greater impact than any individual endeavor. This is exactly the purpose of the Moncrief Cancer Institute Report to the Community: to connect individuals with the community they help and empower more people to join the fight against cancer.

Every four years, the Moncrief Cancer Institute produces a Report to the Community that educates the public about their latest advancements in cancer treatment. The goal of the report is twofold: to generate awareness about preventive care and access to cancer treatment, and encourage donations, so that they can better serve their patients and community – because when we all fight, we fight for all. 

People are at the heart of the Moncrief Cancer Institute and it was important for us to highlight the real people that are at the forefront of our society’s battle against cancer. Each person in the report features a community partner, volunteer, UT Southwestern / Moncrief physician, caregiver, and past or current patients. The report brings to light the personal stories of cancer patients and survivors and illustrates how Moncrief has helped individuals living with cancer and established itself as a premier resource in the global fight against cancer. 

The Moncrief Cancer Institute Report to the Community is a vitally important article that inspires hope in the face of a constant uphill battle. It encourages communal support and raises money for survivor services and early screening for those that would not otherwise have access to care. In short, it inspires everyone in the community to take a stand against cancer. Because if we face it together, we can end it together.

September 18, 2020

The Hill Country is Calling

Wolf Ranch – a Hillwood Community – needed a way to tell its story of camaraderie, tradition, and heritage to a new wave of homebuyers seeking the right blend of the good life and the great outdoors. More than that, they needed to market the expansion of the community that now extended its footprint to the shores of the San Gabriel River. Residents have always had amazing river views, but now they had access to the waterfront right in their backyard. 

Our job was to depict and sell an honest to goodness Texas lifestyle and do so beneath a new brand message that fits comfortably within the existing brand architecture. Connecting with new home buyers on an emotional level can be a tall task, but it can be done with evocative, succinct messaging.

The previous tagline, “The Hill Country is Calling,” reflected the geography of Wolf Ranch, nodding to the intrinsic beauty of the land and its natural enchantment. However, it didn’t represent the camaraderie and community as well as it could.

To evolve that message, we created “A Community Cut From the Land.” The refreshed tagline speaks to nature’s ability to bring people together, a natural metaphor for the thoughtful design Hillwood brings to every community they create. 

Acne is the most prevalent skin disease in the United States, yet most of us don’t see the struggle that happens beneath the surface. For Acne Awareness month, our client – a major global pharmaceutical manufacturer –  wanted to educate the public and healthcare providers about the unseen emotional realities of acne.

We created an unbranded educational campaign with the goal of combining the data and the human element to show people with acne that they are not alone and empower them through a sense of community. Beyond educating the general public, it was important to connect healthcare providers to the patient experience. By showing them the daily struggles of people with acne, healthcare providers can begin treating acne beyond the surface and focus on healing the individual in full.

The result is a powerful campaign that brings a silent battle to the surface and shows people struggling with acne that they are not isolated with their feelings.

When COVID-19 first struck the United States, people weren’t sure what to think or how to appropriately respond. This left a void of reliable information, and The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth – a medical research center and university – saw an opportunity to step forward as a reliable source of scientific information that people could trust. Since the Health Science Center had recently unveiled its rebranding efforts, the timing was perfect to build awareness and positively impact the community.

Avoiding Fear and Promoting Optimism

The public is saturated with dire warnings and doomsday scenarios about COVID-19. While the health and safety intent is noble, many of the messages cause stress, anxiety, and fear, and the emotional effects of these campaigns can muddy the facts and leave the community confused about the realities of COVID-19. The situation required someone to step up, take the lead and empower the people of North Texas with reliable messages and accurate information about COVID-19. Instead of creating something that leads to confusion and fear, why not urge optimism through clear information and encourage preparation?

Producing Against a Deadline and Beneath Quarantine

The seriousness of the coronavirus required truly timely messaging. With that urgency in place, our team had to be nimble and responsive and put together a comprehensive campaign that would inspire community-wide participation in safer lifestyle changes. To complicate matters further, we earned this new business opportunity while our entire team was in the first stages of working remotely and adjusting to the new normal of professional life under quarantine. These circumstances challenged us to strategize quickly, and the nature of creating accurate messages about COVID-19 implored us to execute with extreme accuracy.

Goals:

  • Change attitudes about living during a pandemic from fear to resilience.
  • Educate and empower cautious optimism and offer practical and informative guidance and resources.
  • Leverage the credibility of HSC as the messenger and aggregator of content.
  • Expand HSC’s influence on North Texas by positioning them as dependable sources of reliable information about COVID, and healthcare at large.
  • Improve HSC’s brand awareness and impact in North Texas.

The Solution

COVID-19 is a serious disease that requires people’s earnest respect. Unfortunately, that has created an atmosphere of negativity, and disempowerment that makes people feel like they’re being told what they can and cannot do every single day. People are worried about their jobs, concerned for their family and friends, and lack a clear direction and information about where the situation is heading.

The pervasiveness of negativity and the ultimate feeling of powerlessness led to the creation of the COVID DAYxDAY campaign, which empowers people to be optimistic and pragmatic during these uncertain times. When we created this campaign, we wanted to change the public’s general attitude from fear to resilience. We understand that people feel down, powerless, and pessimistic about the future, so our challenge is to help our community get through this one day at a time – and that’s where DAYxDAY was born. Our ultimate goal is to meet our audience where they are emotionally, and encourage a positive attitude shift with hope, optimism, and science-based guidance that can protect the individual – and our community – from the coronavirus. We needed to do all of this while under a brief, three-month campaign period. 

A Comprehensive Educational Campaign Tailored for North Texas

We built the DAYxDAY campaign with the guidance and partnership of the Health Science Center team. DAYxDAY provides north Texans with reliable information about how to safely navigate the world during the pandemic and offers important community updates to the people of North Texas. In fact, education is at the heart of the DAYxDAY campaign, and one of the core objectives is to encourage healthy lifestyle changes to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. To centralize this information, we created coviddayxday.com – a microsite under the Health Science Center umbrella purely focused on sharing COVID-19 content.

We formed strategic partnerships with Texas news leaders like The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and local organizational partnerships with the City of Fort Worth, Visit Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Tarrant County and Camp Fire First Texas to tap into relevant supporting content and leverage our partners’ audience for improved campaign exposure. To ensure that we shared a wide breadth of valuable information, we carefully selected the type of content we shared from each partner so that we could create a comprehensive informational hub tailored to the needs of North Texans.

Our campaign content matrix uses a blend of organic content, partnership content, paid and organic social media, and earned media to make certain that our message reached the widest local audience possible. Furthermore, the microsite exists in English and Spanish to better communicate with a third of North Texas, which is Spanish speaking.

Tactical Activation:

  • Developed a fully integrated digital campaign to build awareness and drive traffic to the Health Science Center’s COVID-19 resource page.
  • Built a new microsite to consolidate and share relevant COVID-19 content.
  • Encouraged opt-ins and built an integrated CRM and text audience.
  • Developed new content and repurposed existing content through the new microsite.
  • Continued awareness-building and built opt-ins through multiple digital platforms.
  • Expanded geographic targeting to cultivate a larger audience for UNTHSC and make a larger impact on the community.

Results: In just 3 months, the DAYxDAY campaign generated:

  • Nearly 10 million media impressions served
  • Over 1 million people reached through social channels
  • Over 100,000 pageviews on the COVID DAYxDAY website
  • Over 70,000 unique website visitors
  • Email, display advertising and paid social media performance each greatly exceeded industry benchmarks

An Ongoing Battle

The coronavirus pandemic is far from over, and we’re still working to encourage people to take the necessary preventative measures to protect themselves and our community. It’s an honor to be part of a creative campaign that educates and empowers our North Texas home, and we feel fortunate to play a role in helping to keep our community safe and healthy. As a result of our shared success, we’ve expanded the initial campaign agreement into a broader, long-term initiative for the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth.

In real estate, a “sea of sameness” exists that engulfs the majority of brands. From real estate companies to master-planned communities to apartment complexes, there is a lot of branding overlap that makes it difficult for consumers to differentiate one brand from another. But, this industry-wide ubiquitous branding opens the opportunity for other brands to rise above the noise and connect with more consumers on a deeper level. For Hillwood Communities, that meant telling unique brand stories for multiple communities beneath one parent company.

Goals:

  • Analyze each community individually, and define their brand’s differentiators
  • Perform detailed market research to discover how each brand stands apart from the real estate market as a whole
  • Develop branded material for each of Hillwood’s communities that can be used across mediums for various marketing goals
  • Tell distinct stories for each development that will better resonate with target consumers

Navigating The Sea of Sameness

There’s a widespread marketing problem – the sea of sameness – that affects a variety of industries, but it is particularly prevalent in real estate. The sea of sameness occurs when marketers and brands capitalize on similar strategies and KPIs, resulting in identical tones, marketing approaches, and even branding aesthetics. This ultimately dilutes a brand’s market impact, and waters-down the effectiveness of marketing strategy. This market saturation makes it incredibly hard for brands to create real connections with the consumers they serve and hurts their ability to build long-term relationships with consumers.

Strategizing Brand Differentiators

The sea of sameness isn’t all bad, though, and gives willing brands a clear opportunity to use distinctive branding and different marketing tactics to overcome the ubiquity afflicting their competition. For Hillwood, we treated each individual community as its own entity and branded around what makes each community a unique and identifiable neighborhood.

Union Park is an active community that features an onsite elementary school and expansive green spaces. We wanted the community’s energy to shine through, so we used bright, vibrant colors, and highlighted some of the young residents having fun at the park, which better connects to the young family demographics at Union Park. The energy pops off the page, and the brand lives up to the tagline “live a vibrant life.”

Wolf Ranch is situated in the Texas Hill Country and offers a scenic, relaxing way of life hidden along Georgetown’s San Gabriel River. The residents of Wolf Ranch seek escape and adventure, so the brand had the opportunity to really lean into that with messaging and creative. We chose “the hill country is calling” as a tagline, warm, natural colors, and stunning photography of the community and the surrounding Hill Country in the brochure to mimic the nature surrounding Wolf Ranch.

Bluewood is a community in every sense of the word, where residents come together to form real connections and friendships. The community offers an abundance of features such as a community pool, trails, and an on-site elementary, all within a very attainable price point that appeals to Millennial and first-time homebuyers. To brand Bluewood, we chose bright, bold colors that help communicate the community’s exuberant energy. We brought through some of the blue colors used throughout the development and chose the tagline, “a community without compromise” to better highlight all the offerings at an affordable price.

Each specific brand identity is built with identifiable marks that express the community’s individuality. That same individuality allows the brand marks to be fluid and flexible, and useful on a variety of mediums. From brochures to websites and outdoor signage, the brand is clearly communicated and identifiable. By making that connection, we’re able to help spread broader awareness of Hillwood Communities’ developments, and more meaningfully connect with a larger audience of potential home buyers.

Results:

  • Created a full brand platform and messaging pillars for each community
  • Full asset creation and ability to utilize assets across platforms
  • Created a unified brand message, look and feel for each brand

Some campaigns are planned well in advance, which provides ample time to uncover strategic ideas and develop tactical solutions. However, certain campaigns operate under more confined deadlines, which necessitates expedited action to get to market quickly. No matter the planning time available, our goal at Schaefer is always the same— meet our client’s goals and provide a positive impact on their business.

Station House is a luxury, multi-family development in Frisco, Texas. Their team approached Schaefer with a unique situation: they needed to drive 60 new leases in just around 90 days in order to capitalize on peak leasing season. In addition to more residents, Station House needed to generate more brand awareness with their target consumers, young professionals working in the Frisco area.

Beyond the marketing goals, there were some interesting challenges facing our team as we approached this opportunity. Construction crews surrounded most of the major entry points into Station House, which made it difficult for potential residents to enter; there was limited visibility from the tollway, hurting their curb-appeal to traffic passing by; potential residents had to drive by major competition on their way to Station House; and, the amount of construction made prospective residents unsure if Station House was even open.

Between lofty marketing goals under a tight deadline, and the factors affecting local brand visibility, our team had plenty of challenges to navigate as we began strategizing.

Goals

  • Generate 60 new leases to meet occupancy goals in a tight window – 90 days
  • Increase brand awareness among target audience

Strategy

Station House needed a way to entice potential residents with their beautiful amenities and overall space, despite the temporary challenges with their location. Based on time and budget constraints, we chose to evaluate Station House’s existing marketing assets and make strategic recommendations about how to better leverage them to help the Station House rise above the competition in a crowded market.

In addition to photography assets, we identified an existing drone flyover video that would allow us to show off the complex, and its close proximity to dining and entertainment, unconstrained by the surrounding construction by leveraging an aerial view.

We leveraged the flyover video in rotation with other assets in a variety of channels, including Paid Social, Display and Paid Search to spread awareness about Station House, and all that it has to offer residents in Frisco.  We geotargeted strategic locations near Station House to capture the attention of young professionals in the area. In addition, we leveraged Facebook lead generation ads to expedite the process for connecting with a leasing agent. We also leveraged an offer message to incentivize web conversions.

As our campaign unfolded and the numbers began coming in, it was clear that our team had crafted a winning strategy for Station House.

Video Credit: Station House 

Results

  • Netted 68 new leases
  • Improved occupancy to 96% leased space
  • Increased website sessions 2X YOY during campaign period
  • Generated over 250 form fills
  • Produced over 900 phone calls through Google search ads
  • Provided clear strategy and exceeded predicted results

Make Life Better

It was a pleasure to work with the team at Station House, and we thoroughly enjoyed putting together a comprehensive campaign that was driven by a tight window of performance. It is such a treat to shape the fabric of neighborhoods by helping people find a spot to call their home, and turning prospects into residents.

One of the most thrilling challenges is helping a client launch a new product, which is exactly what we did for the TearCare® system by Sight Sciences.

Goals

  • To introduce a new brand to a growing market
  • Capitalize on a market opportunity with disruptive technology
  • Improve the lives of patients by getting a new product that targets the underlying cause of dry eye into the hands of eye care professionals

Analyzing a New Market

Before launching any new product, it’s critical to have a deep understanding of the landscape and the potential competitors or challenges within the market. For TearCare®, we performed a thorough analysis, through both primary and secondary research, of the overall healthcare environment, the eye care submarket, the competitive set and TearCare® ’s differentiating attributes. We came away with some incredibly useful data.

There are 40 million dry-eye sufferers in the United States, and of those, 86% have some component of Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD). We discovered that most of the existing dry-eye devices are cumbersome to administer to patients, take the precise control out of the doctors’ hands and are expensive for a practice to adopt.

Because of the way TearCare® was designed, and its philosophy to address the root cause of dry eye with a combination of leading-edge technology and doctor skill, we saw this is a huge position of value for TearCare® – and that’s where we began crafting our strategy.

A Different Kind of Healthcare Product

Traditionally, the treatment of dry eye disease has been done with large pieces of stationary equipment that requires the patient to keep their eyes closed and doesn’t fully allow the eye care provider (ECP) to fine-tune the procedure to their specific needs.

Even newer entrants into the market addressed the condition in impersonal or intimidating ways, potentially leaving the patient and the ECP with a sub-optimal approach. In addition, the market leader is incredibly capital intensive and presents a challenge to eye care practices to meet their business goals. These conditions created a perfect combination for a company and a new device to address dry eye differently.

Enter TearCare® – the most unconstrained way to target the underlying cause of dry eye – and make real headway – in evaporative dry eye disease.

TearCare® is the world’s first blink-assisted device that applies heat to the eyelids to remove blockage associated with Meibomian Gland Dysfunction. It’s a wearable, blink-assisted design that offers a universal fit across various patient lid anatomies and delivers consistent thermal energy to prepare meibum for clearance by an ECP. It does so in a system that doesn’t require a steep financial investment in a large piece of equipment. All of this informed the final positioning of giving healthcare providers and patients freedom.

Launching a Product to Disrupt the Market

Launching a brand-new product is incredibly exciting but introducing one that will make the entire market take notice can be exhilarating.

We helped take TearCare® to market with a fully integrated marketing and advertising strategy that focused on the freedom TearCare® gives patients and ECPs, differentiating the device from others in the space.

We utilized a blend of paid, owned and earned media channels to deliver the primary campaign messaging. We designed a new website to act as the central hub of information about TearCare® and helped educate healthcare professionals about the new device with trade show activation, sales support materials, and practice-building resources.

This entire campaign was aimed at educating ECPs, introducing them to a new way to treat MGD, and helping them get the device and training needed to begin helping patients. As the campaign began to rollout, the results were astounding.

Results

  • Brought brand new, disruptive product to market
  • The number of new accounts opened in year 1 was 3 times that of the nearest competitor

Make Life Better

Healthcare work is always incredibly rewarding because it allows our team to help connect healthcare professionals to patients in need. For Sight Sciences’ TearCare® device, we were able to help connect healthcare professionals to a new device that targets the underlying cause of dry eye and make life better for those suffering from a chronic degenerative disease.