Schaefer Advertising Co.

Schaefer Advertising Co. Receives District-level ADDY Awards

Schaefer Advertising Co. is pleased to announce that the agency has earned four American Advertising Federation (AAF) District Ten ADDY Awards. District Ten represents ad clubs from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. The award-winning work was nominated for regional consideration, following their success during the AAF-Fort Worth ADDY Awards in February, winning a total of 26 awards. With over 500 entries, the awards won by Schaefer included nine Gold, 10 Silver, five Bronze, one Special Judges, and Best of Show overall. The District Ten award-winning campaigns originally won Gold awards at the AAF-Fort Worth ADDY Awards, including Best of Show, Non-traditional, Out-of-Home, Collateral Material, and Advertising for the Arts & Sciences.

“We are honored have our work recognized on a regional and district level, and continuing on to the National ADDY Awards. But to be honest, what we are most proud of is that we were awarded Gold ADDY’s for six different clients. It wasn’t just one campaign that won in a lot of categories. It was a diverse portfolio of work for a wide range of clients. And given the measurable results the campaigns delivered, it affirms the work was winning blend of strategy and creativity,” Ken Schaefer, president, said.

Schaefer’s Gold and Silver District Ten winners were also entered as finalist at the AAF National ADDY Awards competition. The winning campaigns include:

Gold ADDY – Cassco Development Company, Word Crop Signs

Silver ADDY – Cassco Development Company, Word Crop Signs

Silver ADDY – JPS Health Network, Respiratory Etiquette Campaign

Silver ADDY – Fort Worth Zoo, Zoo Ball Invitation

“It’s great to be recognized at this level for one of our non-traditional projects. It takes a creative idea and bold client to be able to do something as unique as “word crops.” It’s a testament to our collaborative relationship with our clients,” Todd Lancaster, Vice President – Creative Director, said.

About The American Advertising Federation
The American Advertising Federation protects and promotes the well-being of advertising. The AAF has 15 district operations, each located in and representing a different region of the nation. The AAF’s membership is comprised of a national network of nearly 200 local federations, representing 40,000 advertising professionals, located in ad communities across the country; and more than 200 AAF college chapters, with over 6,500 student members. For more information regarding AAF, check out their website http://www.aaf.org/.

June 20, 2014

One futuristic invitation

For Moncrief Cancer Institute’s Future of Academic Medicine event, we used a silver foil on two types of paper to create an upscale invitation. The main imagery on the sleeve is a line rendering of their building, which stands out well from the blue background. The use of silver foil in the negative space of the invitation also created a striking effect.

May 30, 2014

From the ballpark to your backyard

The Story

When Nolan Ryan Beef made Kroger their exclusive retailer, they asked us to help generate awareness for this partnership while driving customers to Kroger stores to buy beef. With a limited marketing budget, we had to get creative if we were going to make a splash in a market the size of the DFW Metroplex. Luckily, “getting creative” is kind of our thing.

The Work

If there’s anything more creative than pairing up NOLAN RYAN Beef and the Texas Rangers, we don’t know what it is. So instead of sinking their marketing dollars into traditional advertising media, we recommended that they pursue a sponsorship with the Texas Rangers. They didn’t have the budget to be a top sponsor in the Ballpark, but we helped them make the most of what they could afford.

With Nolan Ryan Beef as the official beef sponsor of the Texas Rangers, we felt that someone needed to be the official spokesman of Nolan Ryan Beef. Enter Howdy the Hot Dog. Born from a dry erase marker and a window, this guy could be seen everywhere you looked in the Ballpark: concession stand signage, hawker boxes, Jumbotron and more. We even helped design an entire concession stand. We made it virtually impossible to miss Nolan Ryan Beef.

The Results

In the first year of the sponsorship, the Texas Rangers sold more hot dogs than any other ballpark in Major League Baseball. Nolan Ryan Beef doubled their sales with Kroger and even saw a spike in sales in their online direct sales. Answering the question, what’s more American than hot dogs and baseball? Cartoon hot dogs and baseball.

May 19, 2014

Run, but they can’t hide

The Story

When the Fort Worth Zoo tells you they’ve got something big coming, you naturally go think elephant, giraffe, hippo – that kind of thing. Not even close. This time it was bugs. Enormous, animatronic bugs that moved, flapped, hissed and even sprayed. Thirteen of them would be located throughout the park to greet visitors who thought the lions and snakes would be the scariest animals they were going to see that day. Schaefer was tasked with creating a name, identity and marketing materials for the exhibit. Most of us were fine with it. Certain people were less than enthused to learn of the existence of a car-sized spider in Fort Worth – even if it was a robot.

The Work

For the name of the exhibit, we went with GIGANTABUGS!, which was fun and playful but still conveyed exactly what people were in for. And since these bugs were larger than life, our marketing materials had to be “GIGANTA,” too. Our TV spot featured a variety of enormous bug shadows invading well-known Fort Worth spots. To further tease the exhibit, we applied ten-foot bug decals to a three-story building and the sidewalk in front of a busy grocery store.

The Results

This wouldn’t be a case study if our marketing didn’t work, so you probably saw this coming. Our TV spot and guerilla efforts received positive feedback and a lot of social shares leading up to the exhibit. And during the months the exhibit was open, Zoo attendance surpassed their goals by 5%.

May 19, 2014

The Spotlight

Our friends over at TCU Baseball finished the regular season strong with a 38-15 record (17-7 in the Big 12). The Frogs will be the No. 2 seed going into the Big 12 Tournament. Good luck in the tournament and congrats on a great season!

April 21, 2014

Find your favorite spot

The theme for this year’s Zoo Preschool is animal markings and habitats. And because the whole point of the preschool is to teach young kids about animals, we decided to make the direct mail piece interactive and educational. The piece featured a soft, natural color palate and a fun illustrated style, which was carried out across all media including the campers’ t-shirts. Any day we get to to create cartoon animals is a good day. And from the photos, it would appear these preschoolers found their favorite spot at the Fort Worth Zoo.

April 16, 2014

Texas Burger Billboards for Nolan Ryan Beef

Billboard creative for Nolan Ryan Beef and Texas Burger.

January 31, 2014

The Sincerest Flattery

Recently, photographer Victoria Will took a bunch of tintype photos of celebrities at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. In case you didn’t see them, here’s the link.
As the de facto in-house photographer for Schaefer, I thought it’d be fun to see if I could fake the tintype look in Photoshop. The internet being what it is, there are probably some good tutorials out there. But I’m a guy, and I don’t like asking for directions, so I just went for it.
-Scott

January 8, 2014

Bridal Brand Development for the Hurst Conference Center

This year, the Hurst Conference Center came to us with a problem. As always, we came back with a solution.
Problem: How can we increase our wedding and reception bookings and overcome the negative perceptions that engaged couples have of a conference center as a wedding venue?
Solution: Develop a unique brand and identity for the Hurst Conference Center’s bridal market that sets it apart from competitors.
Our first step was to evaluate the local bridal market, the competitors and the unique attributes of the conference center. We then crafted the venue’s unique positioning, which guided us through the naming and identity development process. Our strategy was to develop an identity that conveyed simple elegance while highlighting the unique attributes of the grand ballroom while giving it a name that would sound good on wedding invitations. We developed several different names and designs and, in partnership with the client, landed on a name that highlighted the iconic fiber optic star-field chandelier located in the grand ballroom – Lumiere Ballroom at the Hurst Conference Center.
With the bridal identity developed, we executed the new brand in several collateral pieces to introduce it into the marketplace. Our goal was to differentiate the bridal marketing elements from the rest of the Hurst corporate/meeting planner marketing pieces. This meant pulling away from the traditional red and orange colors.
The bridal identity is set apart from the corporate HCC brand through the photography style and limited use of colors. De-saturated photography added an element of refined elegance to the space, while the use of black allowed the chandelier to stand out as a focal point within the venue. However, the corporate/meeting HCC brand and the bridal identity are tied together through the use of photography and the type family (Helvetica).

December 17, 2013

A SchaeferMade Christmas Card

This year, every single Schaefer employee had a hand in creating our Christmas card. 400-plus hand-stamped cards later, and this didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore. Take a look at how it all came together, and don’t be surprised if next year’s card is store-bought.
Merry Christmas from all of us at Schaefer!