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.
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.
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.
In the Near Southside, we spend every day celebrating women. As a crucial part of the community, women helped define the purpose, culture and growth of the district. From entrepreneurs to artists and advocates, these female visionaries, past and present, had one thing in common—the spirit of the Near Southside.
Every year the Southside Shindig brings neighbors and friends together to spotlight the people and milestones reached in the past year. It’s also the single biggest fundraising event for the Near Southside organization and district.
This year’s theme honored all the women whose ambitions and talents nurtured the community, paving the way for life and work in the Near Southside. All the mentors, mothers and friends we came to know as rebels, risk-takers and rainmakers who showed us then and now what it means to cultivate community.
Every year, Christmas always seems to arrive quicker than the year before. It can be easy to find ourselves running through the motions of holiday activities that we forget to savor and revel in the holiday spirit like we did when we were young. Even though we grow older and have busy lives, we should always try to find the time to express our appreciation to whomever or whatever is special and dear to us.
Our Christmas card features illustrations that each represent the best parts of our year as an agency. Work, clients, new babies, agency culture and a tribute to Boone. These acornaments are a fun way for us all to reflect on the last 12 months, literally. That copper foil is really shiny!
Life is busy and Christmas can become routine, but this is the time to cherish what means the most to us. Get wrapped up in the little things like spending time with someone who you hold dear, slow down and make a batch of hot chocolate for all your family, or even give an extra-long walk to Fido at his favorite park. It’s the little things that add up and can really make this season special.
Thank you to the clients and vendors for working with us. Thank you to all of the friends and family members who have supported our employees and the agency.
So, from our tree to yours, Merry Christmas. Enjoy this acornament from all the squirrels at Schaefer.
One of our clients, Air Comfort, is located at the heart of Southeast Texas, where Hurricane Harvey hit a few months ago. While the area was still reeling, they came to us with an urgent request – help us create a powerful video that embodies how we’ve been part of the community effort in dealing with this natural disaster. Through our partnership with N8 Visuals, we were able to bring that request to life.
Creating this video was a delicate line to walk, showing the damage and rebuild without appearing to capitalize on the situation. It was also an incredibly time sensitive assignment, where we needed to be nimble and move quickly.
With that in mind, the concept we developed relies on storytelling VO and speaks more to the community’s spirit of resilience and heart rather than focusing on Air Comfort. We were inspired by the true stories of a community coming together and helping their neighbors, and it showed. Air Comfort employees opened their homes to our team and let us film during an incredibly sensitive time, laying bare entire neighborhoods that were destroyed.
The results of those efforts show in the final video, and we couldn’t be more proud. #SETXSTRONG
Last weekend was the 15th anniversary of Arts Goggle, our Southside arts festival, and with 800+ local and regional artists, 50 bands and a footprint spreading across 18 blocks of the Near Southside it was the largest one yet! When our neighborhood gathers to celebrate creativity and craft, we can’t help but join in on the fun and take a few schots, Schaefer Shots.
This year we activated a storefront-turned-photo booth and offered free polaroid portraits to the patrons of Arts Goggle. We also captured a digital version and have collected a series of Southside portraits on a site for them to download a copy of the images.
We love being a part of the Near Southside in Fort Worth and this was a chance to engage with the community and give out a few smiles.
The Fourth of July is all about tradition. Fireworks, hotdogs, cold beer, and in Texas, live country music and square-dancing. Beyond baseball and apple pie, there’s nothing more traditionally American than a good old fashioned picnic on Independence Day.
For Billy Bob’s annual 4th of July Picnic, we wanted to celebrate America’s birthday by creating a concert poster steeped in Americana convention. So, with an eye on tradition, and an ear on red-dirt country music, we began exploring the aesthetics of classic rock n’ roll posters for inspiration.
When rock n’ roll hit the scene, musicians needed a way to churn up local attendance to their shows without the help of the Internet, social media, or even a mature broadcast medium. Most musicians relied upon an artist to create concert posters that they could then pin up all over town to get eyes on their showtime. Early concert posters were illustrated by hand in two colors or less, and that’s the well from which we drew a lot of our inspiration. A lot of our influence came from the old Hatch Show Print style, which has been around since the late 19th century.
We chose to screen print the poster to honor the tradition of concert posters from the early 20th century, when screen printing was the most efficient and popular way of creating awareness for a touring rock n’ roll band. The poster was printed by Texas Graphic Resources, and done in two simple colors: red and blue. We printed a half-tone photo in blue on top of the solid red, which gives the poster more depth and dimension. Before photoshop, old-school screen printers used to practice this method to combine existing ideas without having to create completely new pieces of art.
We printed the poster on Neenah Environment Desert Storm 80# C – created by Neenah Paper. The heavier paper gives the poster a more substantial feeling, and the desert-craft color makes it look as if it could’ve been pulled from a collector’s library of classic concert posters, sandwiched somewhere between Buddy Holly and Bob Dylan.
The final result is a vibrant poster that features a blue soldier juxtaposed against a red guitar right in the center. The solider holding the guitar acts as the intersection between two American icons: celebrating Independence Day with music and joyous tradition, while also honoring the soldiers that made the ultimate sacrifice for our American freedoms.
As explorers, we often look forward to find the newest tools to help us accomplish a creative task. But, sometimes the nature of a project urges us to look back in time to find the right solution. For Billy Bob’s 4th of July Picnic, we journeyed back in time to create a memorable poster that celebrates the occasion with a rockin’ salute to the soldiers, music, and American traditions.
On June 11, TCU Baseball punched a ticket to their 4th consecutive College World Series. To break it down for you, they have finished their season on the field in Omaha in 2014, 2015, 2016 and now 2017. We are beyond proud of our client’s achievements but also honored to work with such and elite program with tremendous character.
Since 2014 (notice a theme?), we have partnered with TCU Baseball and head coach, Jim Schlossnagle, to create a video that embodies the brand of the program and establishes a tone for the upcoming season. We bring to life the vision that the coaching staff establishes each day, on and off the field.
They started the 2017 campaign with a pre-season No. 1 national ranking and Coach Schloss challenged his team to rise to the ranking. This year’s video, Work Wins, illustrates the truth that working hard is how you set yourself up to win games. Each player must physically and objectively work out a win each day. No superstitions. No momentum. Victory is found in the details, the routine, the compounding choices and the mindset.
Our job doesn’t stop with the finished product. Just like anything we create, we fight to make sure it performs. And this video has really caught hold. Over the course of the season (February – May) here’s a few stats:
Justin’s Place, a local non-profit organization, exists to enhance the life of a child trapped in generational poverty. Unfortunately, statistics show that a child’s life typically can’t be fully restored until the life of the family is restored. Justin’s Place comes alongside families in need, and helps establish balance by restoring hope and building a foundation that will provide the strength and resources needed to move out of generational poverty and toward a crisis free life of self-sufficiency.
Justin’s Place came to us during a point of growth and transition. Having been appointed the lead benefactor of the Women Empowering Women 2017 Inaugural Luncheon, they were in need of a video for the event that articulated their mission and the real people involved. With that in mind, the goal of the video was to secure funding as well as community backing for their cause.
In the spirit of being true explorers, we first had to evaluate the brand and elevate it. Their original logo was very dated and didn’t reflect the level of professionalism and mission behind Justin’s place. It wasn’t part of what they were asking for, but we felt the need to improve it. The client was extremely receptive to the new design and felt it better embodied the look and feel they are wanting to share with others.
Bird Nest
We come alongside families in need and establish balance by restoring hope and building a foundation. Crown of Thorns
We begin with the heart issues. Our programs are rooted in biblical principles and grounded in the love of God. Sun
Everything we do is to enhance the life of a child.
With the new logo established, we moved immediately into video development. The concept for the video centered around portraits of motherhood. These moving portraits show the many faces of motherhood and allow for a collective narrative that tells the story of what Justin’s Place does and why it matters. Capturing the significance of the need, while preserving the dignity of those in need was an extremely important balancing act.
We only had three weeks to concept, shoot and edit the video, and we were trying to complete the entire project at no cost to Justin’s Place. To accomplish that, we needed a true partner. So we turned to 1820 Productions. When we shared the story, they immediately agreed to participate and donate their services. 1820 Productions went above and beyond all expectations and shot an amazing video. They only had 2 days to make the edits and they put together the vision perfectly.
The fundraiser the video was developed for raised more than $82,000 with 252 people in attendance. The video was posted on Instagram and Facebook with 3,407 views and 240 views on Youtube. Justin’s Place now has a video they can use at fundraisers, on their website, and on different social media platforms that embodies their values and further conveys their mission to a wider audience. The video turned out remarkable and helped the fundraiser become even more of a success and have a larger impact on the community. We helped spread the word and share the message of what Justin’s Place is doing, and what they will continually do for others.
