Schaefer Advertising Co.

Media

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.

Celebrating a Milestone: The 25th Annual Zoo Run

Zoo Run 2024 marked the event’s 25th anniversary, and it was the perfect moment for a creative campaign to bring the excitement of this beloved event to life. The main goals included driving awareness and filling registration spots, with an underlying objective of surpassing the prior year’s results.

Engaging Audiences with Vibrant Creative and Strategic Media

Schaefer crafted an upbeat and eye-catching campaign with the headline “Zig-Zag Through the Zoo.” The creative design used playful, illustrated animals and neon yellow lines to add a sense of movement and energy. Even more, the creative highlighted the Zoo’s newly returned lions, which were a key feature of the race route. Our media strategy included a full-funnel approach to guide users from learning about the event to signing up. We engaged audiences through a mix of paid search, paid social, email, text messages, streaming video, OOH, and display ads—ensuring we reached them at every stage of their journey.

Record-Breaking Success: A Sell-Out Event and Impressive Growth

  • Zoo Run SOLD OUT for the first time in its 25-year history!
  • Registration quantity was 152% to goal, and revenue reached 141% of the goal.
  • Paid search traffic skyrocketed, driving 5x more clicks than the prior year, with an impressive 44% CTR—a 41% increase.
  • Social media engagement soared with 3.8 million impressions and more than 142K total post engagements.
  • Email strategy helped boost engagement with the highest click-through rates seen in years.

Turning a Tradition into a Historic Achievement

Schaefer’s creative vision and strategic approach helped make Zoo Run 2024 a resounding success, not only meeting but exceeding all expectations. By blending bold, fun visuals with highly targeted media, we helped make the 25th anniversary a celebration to remember—turning this beloved event into a sell-out success and solidifying it as one of Fort Worth’s favorite family traditions.

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

Challenge:

The American Advertising Federation (AAF) Fort Worth faced declining engagement and participation in their annual ADDY Awards. Agencies and marketers were submitting fewer entries, partly due to perceptions that the competition held less value, while attendees were becoming increasingly apathetic about the gala. These trends threatened AAF Fort Worth’s operational budget and the vitality of the local advertising community. With artificial intelligence (AI) reshaping the industry, AAF Fort Worth also sought to address the growing tension between human creativity and AI, highlighting that both can coexist and thrive together.

Solution:

We worked with Nick Utter of Content Shift and AAF Fort Worth to develop and execute a campaign that embraced the intersection of human creativity and AI. The campaign leaned into the concept of “The Creative Revolution,” presenting a scenario where AI hosted the ADDYs. By using AI both as a subject and a tool, we delivered messaging that was engaging, thought-provoking, and slightly ironic. Headlines such as “It’s time to submit,” “We’ve seen what you’ve done,” and “Victory is Coming” balanced curiosity with a playful acknowledgment of AI’s role in the creative process. The visuals and messaging reinforced that the future isn’t “us vs. them” but “us + them,” highlighting how AI can be a powerful partner rather than a threat.

“This project was an exciting opportunity to address a rapidly evolving topic in our industry—AI—and engage the advertising community in a fresh, unexpected way. By leaning into the irony of using AI to shape a campaign about its own impact, we were able to spark curiosity, start meaningful conversations, and show that embracing new tools doesn’t mean losing the heart of human creativity. I’m incredibly proud of how our team brought this idea to life, blending humor, insight, and artistry to resonate with our audience.


– Charlie Howlett

Outcome:

The campaign sparked renewed interest and conversation within the local creative community. It helped re-establish the ADDYs as a must-attend event and encouraged more entries from agencies, freelancers, and students. By shifting perceptions about both the competition’s value and the evolving relationship between humans and AI, AAF Fort Worth successfully reinvigorated enthusiasm around the event. The campaign demonstrated how creativity and technology can work together, positioning AAF Fort Worth as a forward-thinking organization and cementing the ADDYs as a meaningful celebration of advertising excellence.

This campaign recently earned a Gold ADDY at the 2025 American Advertising Awards, recognized for both its integrated campaign and poster series. This honor highlights the creative team’s thoughtful approach to the concept, their effective execution, and the impact the campaign had within the advertising community.

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
December 5, 2023

A Gift Above the Rest

Zoo Holiday 2022 Billboard

Driving Holiday Revenue for the Fort Worth Zoo

As the holiday season approached, Schaefer faced the familiar challenge of driving revenue for the Fort Worth Zoo through membership and adoption gift purchases. In a marketplace brimming with options, our task was to set the Zoo apart and exceed year-over-year revenue goals for an offering that had remained consistent for a long time. Our strategy focused on positioning the Zoo’s offerings as unique and meaningful gifts, highlighting the value of membership while also reiterating the experiential aspect of these presents.

Fort Worth Zoo Holiday Social Graphics

Positioning for Audience Impact

Emphasizing memberships over adoptions in both messaging and media was key to maximizing revenue. The campaign aimed to convey that the Fort Worth Zoo offers versatile gifting options, from a tangible present for under the tree to a membership for year-long experiences.

We know that the target audience, composed of Zoo-goers and potential members, already enjoy visiting the Zoo with their families. However, they might not have initially considered Zoo memberships or adoptions as compelling gift choices. The campaign’s goal was to shift the audience’s perception, portraying Fort Worth Zoo memberships as a perfect holiday gift due to their numerous benefits, including unlimited admission, free parking, discounts and access to special events. Zoo adoption packages, featuring plush animals, certificates, coloring kits, and more, not only make for delightful presents but also support animal care and conservation efforts. These offerings were positioned as experiential gifts that fostered a lasting connection to the Zoo, encouraging family enjoyment throughout the year.

Fort Worth Zoo Holiday Emails

Showcasing a Unique Gift Experience

Creatively, we met the challenge of maintaining freshness for a campaign that recurs annually as well as distinguishing the campaign in a crowded holiday market. Unconventional elements took the spotlight, with a memorable neck-bending giraffe as the hero visual and playful copywriting like “A Gift Above the Rest” as the primary headline. The campaign also tapped into the universal appeal of baby animals by featuring the recent giraffe births through secondary imagery and messaging to visit the Zoo often while the babies are still small.

Additional supporting imagery featured the immersive membership experience and the physical adoption package complete with plush animals. This comprehensive visual approach provided a well-rounded perspective of the gift options.

Fort Worth Zoo Social

Results

As a result of the strategy, creative concept, and media plan working in sync, the campaign was wildly successful. We succeeded in setting the Zoo apart in the bustling holiday market and surpassing revenue goals for both gift offerings. 

  • New and gifted memberships in 2022 were almost triple in quantity and revenue as compared to both goals and previous year sales.
  • Return on investment for the campaign as a whole was nearly 10:1.
  • Emails were the top-performing channel, driving a 69% increase in revenue over 2021, led predominately by a Black Friday sale.
  • Paid Media generated significant brand awareness, serving 9.6M impressions (37% YoY increase). Paid Social drove nearly 5.9M impressions (141% YoY increase).

In conclusion, Schaefer’s ability to break through the saturated holiday market with a creative and strategically aligned media plan led to an exceptional year-over-year increase in revenue. The campaign not only met, but exceeded goals, emphasizing the power of unique creative and effective media planning in achieving outstanding results.

For a leading third-party manufacturer, rising above the competition began with a new marketing campaign.

The Situation

Argon Medical Devices came to Schaefer with a need to create awareness for its brand and various product lines. Its key objectives included elevating awareness of Argon Custom Product Solutions (CPS), a division that offers private label and third-party manufacturing capabilities to clients.

Goals

  • Increase awareness of the Argon corporate brand and Argon CPS brand
  • Educate and engage a global Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) audience
  • Generate qualified leads at the top of the funnel to handoff to the sales team
  • Build loyalty and differentiation with precise, customer-centric messaging

Strategy

Argon CPS faced two crucial challenges: First, its awareness in this crowded market was low. Second, in a sector that is heavily driven by price, Argon CPS needed to position itself as a premium brand that brought greater value to customers through an unmatched mix of expertise and capabilities.

Solution

Schaefer developed a strategic campaign that differentiated Argon CPS by promoting its superior level of service, quality, and customization. The new tagline “Build It Better” laddered up to and tied-into the existing Argon corporate brand messaging.

Core messages highlighted attributes such as design and testing capabilities, US-based manufacturing facilities, and Argon’s ability to collaborate with client product development teams. Campaign graphics used upscale visual patterns to underscore the client’s endless customization capabilities and showcase specific product categories.

We then deployed a media strategy for email, social media, digital and online industry publications that carefully homed-in on a global audience of manufacturers and decision makers. Careful audience targeting ensured minimal waste — and maximum results.

Results

Our digital and email tactics carefully targeted recipients by geography and title, allowing us to track campaign results with a high degree of accuracy that: 

  • Generated more than 36K website sessions from 31K+ new users
  • Achieved 3.3 million targeted impressions in less than one year
  • Achieved a 6% Paid Search click-through rate, 1.8x the industry benchmark
  • Launched 463K emails, opened by 20% of recipients
  • Tracked clicked-through rates of prime prospects, including Marketplace Optimization (MPO) click-through rates of .86% 
Argon CPS Email

Summary

Differentiation is always important – especially in categories driven by price or viewed as commodities. By elevating Argon CPS above the industry norm, we strengthened its appeal to higher-end device manufacturers who value quality, service and collaboration.

How Argon Medical Devices merged multiple brands and hundreds of SKUs into a single, cohesive user experience (UX).

Argon on mobile phone

Situation

As a global company with multiple sub-brands and literally hundreds of products, Argon Medical Devices faced a major challenge in creating a simple and cohesive online presence. Argon tapped Schaefer to execute a complete overhaul of its website, from site architecture all the way through design and development.

Argon webpage image

Goals

  • Enhance and optimize the user experience
  • Accommodate international customizations and product offerings
  • Restructure multiple sub-brands and product lines into a single cohesive, centralized site
  • Modernize the design to align with Argon’s new corporate positioning and graphic standards
  • Allow room for growth as future products, capabilities and divisions emerge
Argon webpage image

Strategy

Having recently repositioned the company, Schaefer realized that updating the Argon website would require more than organizing products and accommodating multiple languages. To expedite the process, the creative and digital teams worked in tandem, collaborating closely to ensure that the design and function worked in unison.

While Schaefer’s creative team worked to update design and messaging to align with the new brand trajectory, the digital team examined ways to streamline customer ordering, overcome language barriers, simplify navigation, and create a better user experience across the site’s 70+ pages and thousands of potential product permutations.

Argon webpage image

Solution

The creative team united all business units under the new Argon brand positioning: The Pursuit of Better. This gave all visitors a consistent view of who Argon was, and the shared mission and values that united its multiple brands.

Meanwhile, the Schaefer development team navigated an ever-changing SKU list as the client consolidated product lines. We then performed a number of user experience exercises to build a more efficient user flow for searching and ordering product samples. The new site was able to leverage geolocation to customize content based on the user’s global region, and allowed text to be dynamically translated into multiple languages.

Argon webpage image

Results

The Schaefer team replaced complexity with clarity, and delivered a site that accomplished key goals for both new and existing customers. The improvements included:

  • Successfully consolidating multiple domains and destinations into one organized, easy-to-navigate site
  • Enabling the client to make revisions and updates easily with minimal training
  • Reorganizing and narrowing the featured products to allow an easier search and order experience
  • Automating processes to further improve UX and leveraging geolocation to only showcase products in regions where they are available
Argon mobile image

Summary

To deliver a site that met the client’s goals with a global audience, the Schaefer team leveraged Argon’s core strengths of effective brand messaging and in-depth knowledge of the healthcare space. The client now has a site that better serves its needs today — and will support the brand as it continues to grow and evolve in the years ahead.

Schaefer Advertising Co. | Ft. Worth, Texas
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