As a high-end, mixed-use development, Clearfork needed a naming structure for the five different multi-family projects. Through the brand positioning process, we uncovered the importance of the land to the Edwards family. Through in-depth interviews with family members, we heard stories that painted a vivid picture of how the family interacted with the ranch land for generations.
A Meaningful Name
One story in particular told how, as a young boy, one of the now elder statesman of the Edwards family would rest in the shade with the ranch hands when they would take a break from working the cattle. The ranch hands were surrogate fathers and big brothers to the Edwards boys and played a large role in shaping their young minds and teaching them a respect for the land. The idea was born to name the multi-family developments after these ranch hands. The first, is The Kelton.
Brand Mark and Creative Suite
The brand mark needed to match the sophistication of the Clearfork area, but remain as approachable and welcoming as the Kelton. We wanted to tie the mark back to the history of the land, and the symbol of an open gate was a universal and welcoming sign of hospitality. The resulting mark feels authentic to the family and their history, but is modern enough to attract the right people to these luxury condos.
Positioning the Kelton in Fort Worth
We also designed the website with the goal of giving people an idea of what surrounded this space. Up until its launch this was a largely unknown and unexplored area of Fort Worth, so we needed to connect people to the culture that surrounded it and the vision for what was being built up around it. To illustrate the soul of the Kelton, we photographed key parts of the city that helped paint a picture of the lifestyle they wanted to portray at Clearfork and The Kelton.
A Brand Rooted in Authenticity
Brought the Kelton brand to life with a new creative suite
Marketing in-person events comes with its own set of challenges, but after the pandemic struck, we were presented with a new range of obstacles to activate the community and generate awareness, excitement, and attendance. For the Kimbell Art Museum, we were tasked with creating a community activation campaign that highlighted Queen Nefertari’s Egypt exhibition and encouraged people to safely enjoy the exhibition in person.
Goals
Create community activation and engagement
Connect the exhibition to people and encourage them to enjoy it in person
Encourage community awareness of the new exhibition
Utilize social media to educate the public and generate buzz for the exhibition
Encouraging Engagement During Uncertain Times
Getting in front of your audience physically during the pandemic can be challenging, but there are creative ways to target and engage the community in the digital space that still leads to conversions. The Kimbell needed a big idea that could break the mold of traditional marketing, and we were up for the challenge!
Instead of relying on traditional marketing methods to encourage in-person attendance, we specifically utilized the digital space to accomplish this, examining new trends, tools, and opportunities to engage our audience virtually. While digital analytics are incredibly valuable, this presented another challenge because the ultimate measurement of success is in-person attendance.
Pivoting for Success
Rather than presenting a hard push to get people to the Nefertari exhibition in person, we decided to bring the exhibition experience to the community in a safe way. We created a series of outdoor installations that teased the exhibition and activated audiences in the safety of outdoor spaces. Our team created 3 different murals and 8 different ground clings that educated people about the Nefertari exhibition and encouraged them to experience it in person. For placement, we leveraged internal relationships to strategically set the murals and ground clings in areas that have high foot traffic and chose locations to help build the Kimbell’s network and local footprint. These installations allowed our audience the chance to walk in Queen Nefertari’s sandals and experience the magic of uncovering a hidden Egyptian ruin.
Leveraging a New Technology
To supplement the installations and ground clings, we sought a way to digitally engage our audience wherever they are and immerse them in Queen Nefertari’s Egypt. We worked with the Kimbell to come up with an engaging digital campaign to shift into the digital space. This was a big step for the Kimbell, since most of their previous campaign activations were created with traditional advertising methods. After careful market observation and extensive digital discovery, we found that more and more destination brands were incorporating augmented reality into their marketing plans.
Augmented reality takes many forms, but at the core of AR is the ability to partially immerse a user in an experience through a digital device like a phone or computer. For the Kimbell, we sought to create an AR campaign that brought Queen Nefertari to life and offered our audience a new way to engage with the exhibition. We created two AR filters that gave people two distinct ways to place them in Queen Nefertari’s Egypt.
The first AR filter we created features Queen Nefertari’s crown – a three-dimensional depiction of a flat hieroglyphic crown that people could wear and enjoy on Instagram and Facebook. The second AR filter features a series of hieroglyphs etched into stone laid behind the user to make it appear as if they had just discovered the ruins.
It was a challenge to take a flat hieroglyphic crown and turn it into an accurate three-dimensional rendering. But, after hours of research, testing, and iteration, we were able to take a piece of Art and turn it into a relatable and engaging piece of technology that was accessible and relevant to audiences everywhere.
Results
Helped the Kimbell effectively reach max capacity of the Nefertari exhibition
More than 1.1M paid media impressions
More than 5 thousand tickets sold
The entire campaign resulted in more than $383k in revenue
AR filter earned 5.7K impressions and 3.6K opens
CTR of 1.71%, above the industry standard of .8%
308 shares of the filter ads
Incorporated new technology into our client’s marketing strategy
Produced and installed wall murals and ground clings
Building a website is an opportunity to hone in on specific marketing objectives and create a powerful digital space to engage consumers. We partnered with the Texas Ballet Theater to build a website focused on improving ticket sales through an improved user experience, and design it to share the exuberant spirit and artistry of ballet in its structure.
Goals
Develop a new website, and shift the focus to ticket sales
Develop content specifically to help visitors relate to the professional dancers
Highlight the ballet company and their role in the community
Create a website that is easy for the organization to update and change season to season through use of internal marketing resources
Defining a Clearer User Journey
When building a new website, understanding how people use it is key to pair functionality with supporting key marketing objectives. For Texas Ballet Theater, we took a deep dive into the popular user paths people take to purchase tickets and sought to understand the user experience. One critical point that we discovered was that there were far too many clicks and exit points between users and purchasing tickets. With that in mind, we defined clearer user paths and designed the structure of the new site to make it easier and quicker for users to purchase tickets.
Strategic Content Migration
As we shifted the new website to focus on e-commerce, we reduced the number of actions it takes to purchase a ticket down to two simple clicks and made the ticket sales portal readily available and visible on each page. To minimize the bounce rate and encourage more time on site, we improved the user flow by reducing duplicate pages and dead ends on the site. We also instituted analytics to track revenue data and connect e-commerce data to the ticketing system to monitor our progress.
The result of the strategic content migration is a streamlined site that is focused on guiding users to purchase tickets and learn more about the Texas Ballet Theater.
Site Architecture Aimed at e-Commerce
Through discovery and internal research we determined the key objectives were to restructure the site navigation to improve ticket sales, but also educate the public about Texas Ballet Theater beyond their on-stage product. The website needed to promote special events, highlight donation opportunities, and showcase the work that TBT is doing for local schools and young dancer education, as well as their many community outreach initiatives. So, we consolidated the number of pages to make it easier for users to navigate from the homepage to any section they needed and reduced the friction in navigating between pages outside of the homepage.
We carefully considered the different types of people visiting the website and used those personas to help create smoother user paths and a richer user experience for a wider audience.
An Improved Mobile Experience
As with any website redesign, a website needs to offer a seamless experience on desktop and mobile devices. When we designed the mobile site, we wanted to ensure that it served the same primary goal as the desktop version: sell tickets. So, we simplified the website to offer users the primary information through shorter users paths. We also improved the navigational elements to make the site easier to click through on mobile devices.
A Website that Communicates the Energy of Ballet
Our team sought to emphasize the spirit of the TBT brand in the final website design so that it was as beautiful as it was functional. Furthermore, we wanted to elevate the performances and dancers so that they took center stage as the visual standouts. We also sought to create a flexible framework for the web design so that each season of ballet felt fresh and exciting without having to undergo significant site construction to update it. The site can easily be updated by the TBT marketing staff, and it’s flexibility allowed for quicker performance updates during the pandemic.
Visually, the new website is driven by photography and highlighting the dancers. We elevated the typography choices and color palette to reflect the modern aspects of TBT so that the pages moved beyond the season and established TBT’s brand. To communicate the dynamic movement and energy of ballet, we used a non-traditional structure that fluidly moves users down the page. The final website design is one that balances form and function while standing as a testament to the fundamental motion of ballet.
Results
The total volume of site traffic was impacted heavily in 2020 as a result of COVID-19, which also led to multiple performance cancellations. However, 2020 metrics still indicate significant increases in overall website performance.
More users clicked to purchase tickets to The Nutcracker 2020 compared to The Nutcracker 2019.
In December 2020, more than double the number of users clicked from The Nutcracker 2020 page to purchase tickets compared to the same page in December 2019.
Behavior flow to purchase tickets improved, with users entering the ticketing platform within just 2 clicks, as compared to 3+ clicks on the previous site.
Improved time efficiencies for updating the website, saving on future and ongoing web development
Incorporated pages where TBT can share about their artistic direction, where they’re going as a company, add their personality
Every year the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation (TPWF) hosts an event to honor and induct some of its biggest friends and supporters to the Conservation Hall of Fame. The event is one of the most prestigious conservation award dinners, attracting partners, ambassadors and donors from across the state to benefit the TPWF and amplify its mission.
The 2019 inductees strongly believe in the responsibility every Texan has to maintain our land and the life on it. The primary theme for the event focused on connection, more specifically on the flora and fauna that grow wildly across the Lone Star state, each native species playing a vital role in our ecosystem. To raise awareness and excite attendees, we set out to design an invitation suite befitting Texas’ most precious resource—all the wild things and wild places that make our state great.
The state of Texas is not only vast. It’s diverse. From the panhandle to the pines, every inch is famed for its beauty and defined by the iconic landscapes. And there’s no better way to appreciate those views than from the open road.
Seeking to capture that feeling of nostalgia for long drives and wide-open spaces, we built a conceptual theme centered around the classic American road-trip—Texas-style. A limited-edition postcard series served as the invitation, each featuring a hand-drawn illustration of true Texas moments from five distinct regions.
The event helped raise private dollars for public funding. And the invite provided guests with a tangible piece of Texas they could collect or share with others to inspire conservation. A tribute to the landscape and a call to experience the wild, Texas Road Trip won awards at the local and regional American Advertising Awards in 2019.
The Gary Patterson Foundation raises thousands of dollars every year to benefit various education and children related entities. After experiencing Mack, Jack & McConaughey in Austin, the Gary Patterson Foundation was inspired by MCM’s efforts to empower kids through 2-days of fundraising and fun. After careful consideration, they decided to shift their traditional Joe T’s annual event into a weekend filled with fundraising activities from golf to galas. With a shift as big as this, they needed to create an impactful brand.
Goals
Develop brand name, narrative and messaging for the non-profit event series
Create a dynamic brand identity system that communicates the values of the non-profit
Finding the Way
We worked closely with the Gary Patterson and his team to better understand the audience and impact of the new events, and create a strategy that would speak to their target audience. The events needed to attract all generations of donors in North Texas, and be accessible to those that would like to donate for the first time. The new initiative also needed to be the core fundraising event for the Gary Patterson Foundation. So, we had to position it as an accessible, diverse non-profit open to those that aren’t passionate about sports, but also welcome those that are – it had to be inclusive and suitable for a diversity of mediums. From black ties to tailgates, the mark needed to be flexible enough to feel at home at any type of fundraising event.
Plenty of Good to Go Around
To communicate the breadth and impact of the fundraising efforts, we knew the brand and mark had to be big. With an emphasis on the good.
The organization landed on the name, “The Big Good,” which is direct, yet powerful. Its strength is in its simplicity. A quick read with enough flexibility to cover more than one specific event or fundraiser. The Big Good indicates the diversity of events and their monumental impact on North Texas families and beyond.
The typographic logo is purposefully simple to communicate the variety of events at the heart of the Big Good. Each of the letterforms is customized and unique which further emphasizes the diverse structure of the Big Good. The crossbars on the “H/E/B/G” are all different and intentionally illustrate the fun and engaging nature of the events that offer something substantial for everybody, and specific need in Dallas Fort Worth.
A subtly simple mark, paired with a direct brand name can make an impactful and memorable impression. The Big Good branding illustrates the power of using simplicity to communicate and represent a brand.
M. Kangerga & Bro Management (MKB) is a commercial real estate investment company that focuses on self-storage opportunities. The family-owned business has been around for more than 100 years—historic, yet brandless in their industry. To strike the right note, Schaefer partnered with MKB to develop their brand identity and expand brand visibility and credibility as the company sought investment partners.
Working Forward
The purpose of the MKB rebrand was to modernize the brand tone and visual aesthetics to not just live on, but inspire confidence and empower decisions among investors and new business leads. As the company expanded relationships with third-party investors, they needed a brand identity that leveraged their heritage into an authentic look with a very updated, polished feeling.
Goals:
Capture history and legacy in new brand identity
Create a presence online to establish credibility and appeal to new investors
Create new marketing materials for investor pitches
A Nod to the Past, Present and Future
Stylistically, we wanted the new creative platform to pull through the heritage of the brand, but not feel old. We created a mark that nods to MKB’s roots, but also reflects where they are right now and where their company is heading. The primary logo has a quiet confidence, and the typeface’s nuanced letterforms illustrates the imperfections – but staying power – of carving into stone, which is a nod to the company’s impressive history.
The typography we chose is based on Jandus, which leverages strong architectural characters, friendly rounded corners and classic simplicity that can stand the test of time, just like MKB.
We selected a minimal color palette of dark charcoal and muted gold and cream, which represent the history and tradition that serve as the very foundation for MKB’s success, while also indicating their steadfastness and lasting nature. These colors work together to communicate that MKB is a trusted leader in commercial property investment and that their long history is full of decades of success.
Results
Cohesive brand development
Logo recommendations and
Color palette, font solutions
Complementary stylistic assets
Brand standards
Web design
Narrative + messaging
When branding a company, it’s important to thoroughly understand the company’s principles and how they want to be known in the hearts and minds of their prospects. For MKB, we created a comprehensive brand identity that captures the history of over 100 years of successful business ventures and indicates that the brand will be around for many more fruitful years to come.
The Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce has served the business community within the Fort Worth area since the late 1800s, playing a pivotal role in nearly every major milestone that has occurred in the city. Moving into 2020, the Chamber’s CEO of over 30 years retired, opening the door for a new, visionary leadership team to continue the Chamber’s momentum in driving forward the success and growth of Fort Worth business.
Opportunity
The emerging Chamber team developed a specific vision and strategic plan to capture and sustain growth for the City of Fort Worth, serving as both the champion for existing businesses while executing aggressive economic development efforts. Critical to the success of this plan was to reintroduce the Chamber to our business community, influencers, and new prospects in a manner that would enlighten them to the value of the city and engage them with the Chamber. To accomplish this successfully, the Chamber team partnered with Schaefer Advertising to refine the communications platform and brand identity.
Approach
Each of our brand initiatives begins with a critical analysis of an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and differentiators. We immerse ourselves in the vision of the company, including all marketing and business objectives. With the FW Chamber, we identified the opportunity to capitalize on the legacy of the organization while creating a more defined and contemporary position that was current with today’s business climate. Through the development of a Brand Archetype, coupled with a defined brand position and targeted key messages, we created a communications platform that the Chamber can use in their marketing efforts moving forward. This platform also fully informed the creative development of a new brand identity.
A Heroic New Mark
Our exploration process revealed that the Chamber was defined as a Hero archetype, a persona defined by strength, courage, commitment, and a drive to move things forward. Taking direction from that archetype, our creative team explored a multitude of solutions for the new Chamber brand. In keeping with our process of immersion, the team explored other related and competitive organizational brands, the history of Fort Worth, and the Chamber to inspire the recommended design solutions.
The resulting mark is simple, bold, and includes a star as a subtle nod to a boot spur and a connection to the prior iteration of their logo. The new identity evolves their brand to better represent the community it serves and the institutions it champions.
When it comes to oncology, medicine has advanced in big ways. But the business side of running an oncology practice hasn’t kept up. In the age of automation, back-office operations are often tedious, siloed and completed manually. Factors that contribute to misused resources and the growing cost of cancer care. That’s where AC3 comes in.
AC3 is a practice intelligence platform that harnesses the power of data to improve the quality and speed of back-office work. Allowing doctors and staff to trade paperwork and process for a more meaningful purpose—caring for patients. With care being core to their business, the real obstacle was creating an identity that lived up to AC3’s cutting-edge capabilities as well as their impact on patient care.
Bringing Care Into Focus
Cancer is humbling and, most importantly, human. So the branding had to communicate the function of a tech-driven product in a very human way. In addition to a visual identity, AC3 needed a way to talk about themselves to a more public audience. We developed positioning that helped define who they are. And rooted it in the real-world, analog benefits doctors and patients experience. Productivity, revenue, quality of care, this platform gives doctors the ability to do more. A lot more.
For the mark, we took a nod from the company’s namesake—Advanced Cancer Care Centers—and aligned it with the platform’s ability to improve operations within a practice exponentially. We let positioning guide design and the result was meaningful.
With any tech-based product, there’s a concern around sharing proprietary imagery—a challenge we faced when representing the product in a tangible way. Rather than showing the software itself, we focused on the moments AC3 makes possible.
When we took ownership of Lilyana marketing, the community needed a brand that better connected homebuyers to the true joys of living in this community.
Honing in on Key Differentiators
This community is far from cookie-cutter, so it only made sense to highlight the factors that make it stand out in a cluttered and crowded market. For Lilyana, it’s the conveniences and lifestyle that make it a truly special place to call home. With more than 50-acres of green space, the community is packed with natural amenities, numerous parks and things for homeowners to do outdoors. All of which keep the community and people connected.
A Refocused Brand Position
Lilyana is located in Celina, a peaceful, up-and-coming town remote enough to harbor tranquility and close enough to Frisco to take advantage of its entertainment, energy and everything it has to offer. When we began to evolve the brand position, we pulled the thread of accessible tranquility to show prospective homebuyers that it is possible to have it all when you live at Lilyana.
Communicating Joy and Tranquility
We needed a way to portray the very real, and often intangible, qualities that make this community so special. By incorporating bubbles as a visual element, we were able to communicate the true value of a Hillwood community—connection, comfort and an ethos rooted in community. All while positioning Lilyana as a place to pause and enjoy the moment.
In addition to visually refreshing the brand, we also revitalized the brand language to communicate joy in the Lilyana lifestyle. “A place to embrace life’s moments” communicates that Lilyana is a community for people to slow down and enjoy their lives – right here, right now.
Building a comprehensive brand story gives real estate brands more space to have meaningful conversations with home buyers. Developing Lilyana’s position in a cluttered and competitive space helped the brand stand out, and ultimately led to more home sales.
Surgeons have many procedural options when caring for patients, and treating glaucoma is no different. Despite the numerous procedures and tools available for ophthalmologists, they each have the same goal: to treat their patients most effectively.
So, when OMNI® launched their new 2.0 device, which has functional advantages over other similar products on the market, we had to communicate the benefits this new device had over its competition.
An Evolved Device Needs an Evolved Campaign
Efficacy is what uniquely sets OMNI apart from other glaucoma treatment options available to surgeons. Beyond efficacy, the new OMNI device provides patients with a more acceptable risk level, addressing all three points of the conventional outflow pathway. While other procedures and devices focus treatment on a single point of resistance. The OMNI Surgical System allows surgeons to treat all severities of open-angle glaucoma, empowers them to intervene in combination and standalone procedures, and provides surgeons with the ability to treat glaucoma with versatility. All of these product advancements ultimately empower surgeons to treat their patients with a more efficacious approach with confidence and provide patients with a higher level of ocular treatment.
It’s All About Efficacy
OMNI’s brand awareness is strong and based on a functional message that resonates with ophthalmologists, cataract surgeons and glaucoma specialists. But we needed to evolve their position from function, that was established during the first generation of the device, and move into a more benefit-driven message that emotionally connects surgeons to their patients. To achieve that, efficacy had to be brought to the front and center of the campaign messaging. Additionally, we had to communicate that no other device addresses all three points of resistance in the conventional outflow pathway.
The concept, “Go for Three,” alludes to taking a three-point shot in basketball. It puts the ball in the hand of the surgeon and empowers them to make the choice. This tagline nods to the new OMNI device being the highest-scoring option available on the market, and encourages surgeons to choose the option that is better than the rest. Why settle for a 2-point layup when you have a wide-open shot at a 3-pointer? This active metaphor was a way to invigorate and engage the target audience with something unique in a crowded device market and simply position OMNI as a shot worth taking.
Results
Reached an all-time high in sales
Accelerated the brand in a very successful direction
Made a huge splash in the industry, even amid the Covid-19 pandemic
Evolved campaign expanded into a sales aid, educational materials, website, and into more multi-media placements
