August 20, 2013

The Story of Schaefermade

By now, any of you who were curious about all of our Schaefermade Facebook posts from a couple months ago (not to mention the bright yellow building next to our office) might have thought we would never tell the story of Schaefermade. Sorry about that. We got busy, and, well, you know how it is.

So what was the deal with all that? Well, twice a year, Fort Worth holds an event called Arts Goggle during which artists display their work in local businesses. It’s a city-wide event, but most of the fun goes on near our office on Magnolia.

Each year for the Spring Arts Goggle, we try to think of a way to participate and engage the crowds who flock to our neighborhood. Our goal is to find a way to differentiate our booth from the businesses, artists and vendors at the Near Southside Arts Goggle event while building awareness for Schaefer Advertising Co. in the community.

This year, we decided (with the help of former interns Darcie Nicholson and Elizabeth Kahn) to do an over-the-top version of the classic summertime lemonade stand. We’d create a pop-up lemonade stand for the day of the event, then use our advertising and PR skillz to get the word out. The lemonade would be free, and all donations would go to Fort Worth Southside’s tree planting initiative.

With this theme in mind, we kind of went nuts. Donkeys have their carrot. Schaeferites have their lemon.

– Art director Charlie Howlett put a lemon on a skewer so he could hold it over people’s faces and take LemonHead portraits of everyone in the office, which he then posted to the Schaefermade Instagram page.

– The lemon on the skewer led to some impromptu side yard antics, which we filmed and posted on Facebook.

– Obviously, our lemonade stand needed a mascot. Just as obvious to us, that mascot was going to be Account Supervisor Nick Bendian. We ordered the costume, then filmed Nick dancing around and in the middle of Magnolia to make another teaser video, which we also posted on Facebook.

– The Schaefer team hung lemons from trees up and down Magnolia Street. A tag on these lemons teased our upcoming lemonade stand and directed people to tag a photo of the lemon on Instagram. For every photo tagged, Schaefer donated $1 to the tree-planting initiative.

– We created window displays the week before the event to tease the lemonade stand.

– And last but not least, we had the building painted bright yellow the day before the event. People couldn’t believe we went to all that trouble for a one-day event, and we took it as a compliment. To us, doing things the right way is always worth the effort.

Our lemonade stand was a big success. In fact, we ran out of cups long before the event shut down. (Sorry if you didn’t get any lemonade!) Nick danced his heart out for about four hours, losing several pounds of water weight, getting lots of smiles and even posing for a few photos. A good time was had by all.

Here’s the breakdown:

– Distributed 1,250 Schaefermade-branded cups of lemonade
– Increased our social community of followers that engaged with the brand
– Had almost 750 views of two short videos created prior to the event
– Gained 30 new likes to the Schaefer Facebook page in less than two weeks
– Increased our followers on Instagram by over 30 people in 10 day period
– Raised $529.33 for the Fort Worth South Inc. Tree Planting Initiative
– Gained visibility and goodwill in the community
– Built teamwork and camaraderie among Schaefer employees

August 19, 2013

Croppin’ Up

In anticipation of the Clearfork Main Street Bridge opening, which would open up traffic through Clearfork for the first time, we wanted to develop on-site signage that would call motorists’ attention to sheer size of the land and tease what was to come.

Rather than putting up traditional banners or billboard signage, we created a concept that used larger than life words to describe the soul of Clearfork. The words were placed at strategic points on the property and were made to appear as if they had grown out of the land. Thus, we referred to the project internally as the Clearfork word crops.

August 19, 2013

Croppin’ up

In anticipation of the Clearfork Main Street Bridge opening, which would open up traffic through Clearfork for the first time, we wanted to develop on-site signage that would call motorists’ attention to sheer size of the land and tease what was to come.

Rather than putting up traditional banners or billboard signage, we created a concept that used larger than life words to describe the soul of Clearfork. The words were placed at strategic points on the property and were made to appear as if they had grown out of the land. Thus, we referred to the project internally as the Clearfork word crops.

August 13, 2013

Predict. Prevent. Extend.

For over 40 years, Win-Sam has been making energy production plants run better and last longer. Their motto is simple: Predict, Prevent, Extend. Through extensive predictive and preventive maintenance strategies, they can increase operational efficiency and extend the life of your equipment.
Since a lot of Win-Sam employees are former Navy men, we went with a military style logo for their rebrand. This insight, combined with the industrial look of their everyday work environment, helped establish a look that we carried out through several pieces. Each of these pieces conveys the strong, roll-up-their-sleeves kind of work ethic that makes Win-Sam so valuable to their clients.

August 9, 2013

Out of This World

The headlining band at this year’s Beastro – a food tasting and live music event at the Fort Worth Zoo – was Starship. Creative director Todd Lancaster decided to take it in a Close Encounters of the Third Kind direction, and it turned out to be the winning concept. (Despite the illustration, no giraffes were served as food at this event.)
Along with more traditional media like outdoor, direct mail and banner ads, we went guerrilla on this project as well. We created a stencil based on Todd’s artwork along with spray chalk to advertise the event on Fort Worth sidewalks. The cans of spray chalk say they’re wash off in a week or so. The fact that we could still see them several months after the event had ended would indicate otherwise. Oops.
Anyway, the event was a lot of fun, Starship rocked the party and a ton of Fort Worth food fans got to stuff their faces and make new friends.

August 5, 2013

This Is Schaefer

July 9, 2013

Goes great on fingers

Now, putting barbecue sauce on the finest beef in the land may seem like sacrilege, but if Nolan Ryan says it’s okay, it is. And if Nolan Ryan puts his name on a barbecue sauce? You know that’s good, too. Okay, technically we put Nolan Ryan’s name on a barbecue sauce, but only because he told us to.

June 25, 2013

Thanks to the Southside!

Thanks to the generosity of the Southside community during our Schaefermade lemonade stand promotion at ArtsGoggle, we were able to make a donation of $529.33 to Fort Worth South, Inc. at the end of last month. Paul Paine, president of Fort Worth South, made the journey to our office to accept the donation. In our typical subtle fashion, we wore our Schaefermade shirts for the big occasion.

The donation will be used for the organization’s tree planting initiative in the historic south side (still no word on whether or not these will be lemon trees although our fingers are crossed). So if you see new trees popping up in the near future, take pride in your contribution to Fort Worth South’s cause and remember the sunny day that we came together as a community in front of a bright yellow building and enjoyed a refreshing cup of Schaefermade lemonade.

June 22, 2013

The one thing

It’s easy to say that a hospital is there for a community, but Medical Center Arlington has the numbers to back it up. That’s why we put their stats front and center for their annual marketing campaign. We used brand colors and bold, three-dimensional numbers to highlight MCA’s many benefits to the people in and around Arlington. And what better place to engage than at the Ballpark in Arlington?

Rangers fans were introduced to the advanced services MCA offers right in their own backyard with both traditional and digital messaging throughout the ballpark. The takeaway? For all of their advanced care offerings, their priority is always one thing: the patient.

May 24, 2013

That’s a Wrap!

A big thank you goes out to everyone who help make Schaefermade Lemonade Co. a sweet success at Arts Goggle last weekend!

We gave away 1,250 cups of lemonade and raised $513.33, which will go toward the tree planting initiative in our very own neighborhood. A few lemons will go a long way by beautifying the area for generations to come. Our apologies to anyone who came by after we’d run out of cups. Just be sure to like us on Facebook for news on future events.

While the lemonade is long gone, we do still have a few electric-yellow Schaefermade t-shirts left. If you took pictures of the Schaefermade stand (or Mr. Lemon), post them on our Facebook page, tag Schaefer Advertising and we’ll send you a free t-shirt.

When life give you lemons, make lemonade. When Schaefermade gives you lemonade, donate money to plant trees. Bet you didn’t know that’s how the rest of that saying went.

Schaefer Advertising Co.

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