When you connect with consumers on a deeper, authentic level, they don’t just purchase, they buy into your message and brand. They reserve a trusted place for you in their lives. You don’t have to dissect corporate obituaries to know the power of trust or distrust in the market. And who wields that power. When consumers feel your brand rings true, you can own the most trusted, profitable relationship in your category. This is something to build on, to strengthen, especially now. For a different kind of marketing conversation, give me a call at my mobile, 973.454.8536, or email me at jan@thezlotnickgroup.com Thank you, Jan Zlotnick The Zlotnick Group 285 West Broadway Ste320 NYC 10013 ph212.226.6838 http://www.thezlotnickgroup.com
Portfolio
Countybank, AmeriHealth, Schick, Avanti Fashion, Corcoran, Alenia Aeronautica, Hackensack University Medical Center, MarketVision, Momentus. (undisclosed others in research/planning) I Love NY, BMW, Time Hotel, Lifetime, Timberline, Guess, Ilford, Bertolli, Consumer Reports, NewYork-Presbyterian, Blue Cross, Paul Hastings law firm, Ironbound Bank, Kraft, Mars, Business Week...
Jan Zlotnick, Strategic-Creative Director
Gloria Eng, Brenda Smith Brand Strategy/Planning, Ethnography
Colin Ochel, Gregg Greenwood
Creative Dir, Web-Interactive
Jay Shaw Research, Mrktg-Bus Analysis
The Zlotnick Group
Marija Miljkovic Art Direction, Design, Production
Nairb Retla, Emma Gunn Com-Media Planning
Melanie Kartzman, CFO Karen Garland, Financials Christina Strong Account Director
Jan Zlotnick
Strategic-Creative Director •
Grew up working in his father's furniture store in Maryland.
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After Brown, and outrunning the bulls (barely) in Pamplona, attended Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, moved to Los Angeles, worked at L.A. Herald Examiner.
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To New York: ad agency copywriter on Business Week, Sheraton, Sweet 'n Low…
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At Saatchi, headed Bacardi Rum brand group
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At other agencies and at The Zlotnick Group, created strategy and campaigns for Ilford, Bertolli, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Guess, Timberline, Consumer Reports’ Consumer WebWatch, I Love NY, BMW Motorcycles, Lifetime, Hackensack University Medical Center, Heartland Brewery, Time Hotel, AmeriHealth, New York-Presbyterian…
What if we were to rethink your story so it rings true. Faster, deeper, more remarkably‌
with a discipline of strategic and creative rethinking like this...
ILFORD Black & White Photography
Problem / Solution
Situation: A name brand for black-and-white film, paper, and equipment in Europe, Ilford had little brand recognition among professionals in the United States. The biggest problem? A competitor named Kodak with a $19 billion revenue stream, ad budgets in the hundreds of millions, and legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz on its payroll.
Re Think: How can we break or even pause the professionals’ Kodak habit? How was a burning passion for their b&w art connected to a particular brand? How could we gain trust and win trial? Insight: Nobody has a more colorful take on life than b&w photographers. Observe, and absorb, a real conversation with them and you’ll find that they actual distrusted the notion of a Big Corporate Brand telling them what beautiful black and white is, out of a yellow box none the less. A deeper look into this iconoclastic soul reveals that they are so creative, so independent, so self-motivated, that you don’t need to, don’t dare, dictate creativity to them...but, instead, let them make their own creative judgment of which brand to trust for their b&w work, their art. Ring True Solution: A campaign that authenticates b&w photographers’ innate courage and that completely, confidently gives them credit for being the artist, for seeing beauty and value in their own imaginations. A campaign daring in itself: breaking ground in the photo industry by offering not a single photograph, yet communicating photographic expertise more powerfully, more empowering than any other brand. Result: Catapulted Ilford from 0% to 3% market share in first year. Established Ilford as The black-and-white expert, The b&w brand. Built a genuine relationship with customers. Positioned Ilford as authentic, as the leader without the attendant corporate, big-brother arrogance.
Category Think: Kodak is art. Insight: Photographers’ appreciation for their art goes deeper than image itself‌ Re Think-Ring True Position: Ilford is Black & White. (You are the artist. You create the art)
Copy: Inventive. Irrepressible. Illuminating. Ilford. Nobody sees more into black and white than we do.
Copy: Intriguing. Involving. Indelible. Ilford. Nobody’s wilder about black and white than we are.
Copy: Interactive. Introspective. Inseparable. Ilford. Nobody knows the philosophy of black and white like we do.
ILFORD in the black. Colorful language heard at Kodak.
Increased market share 0% to 3%. Ilford seen as the expert, authentic brand in category.
“Zlotnick saw something in us, and in our customers, that nobody else even looked for.” Laurie Macomber, U.S. Marketing Director, ILFORD
“The best campaign I’ve ever seen for B&W, …maybe for anything in photography.” Paul Hope, Director, Worldwide Marketing, ILFORD
Time Hotel
Problem / Solution
Situation: In New York, there was a trend in the hotel industry toward smaller, more personal, “designer” hotels. The international designer Adam Tihany had a vision of his own that went beyond the others: Not just trendy, but enduring. Not just great design, but a great spirit that touches the soul. At the visual center of Tihany’s vision: the primary colors red, yellow, and blue. When you entered a room at the Time hotel, you would be seduced by a cool monochromatic space, then charged creatively by a dramatic stroke of one powerful color, as in a red bedspread, a red marble on a white towel, a red fruit in a beautiful vase..,.
Re Think: Adam had something different in mind, a strategic “Zen” to his thinking. Why the primary colors? How could his vision be communicated? What connects Time and its customer? Insight: Like the best designers and brand visionaries, Adam’s idea was, in fact, centered on the customer. And this customer was about more than location, comfort, and service. Those were givens. The customer was the on-the-move creative director from San Francisco, the aspiring filmmaker from London, the portfolio-toting fashion designer from Italy. Introducing a hotel was really about establishing a creative relationship, an authentic dialog, with this very self-motivated, discovery-obsessive customer. Ring True Solution: Be a place that inspires (don’t just be a hotel). Diving right-brain into Adam’s primarycolors design theme, this is a place invites, involves, inspires the creative mind & person. Result: 90%+ room capacity. Breakthrough awareness for grand opening and, more important, a building, sustained momentum for brand awareness after the opening.
Category Think: All guests want same thing: Service, Comfort, Location, Price. Insight: Time guests consider themselves creative. They like to play, discover‌ Re Think-Ring True Position: A place that inspires. (Time guests want something more, something different)
Teaser page
Teaser page
Teaser page
Time created a niche in a niche. - Created launch buzz, then sustained it as a culture. - A position in market distinctly its own -- customer’s own. - Avg time spent on ads in this category: 2-3 seconds. - Time spent on Time Hotel ads: 2-3 minutes.
I Love New York
Problem / Solution
Situation: A legendary “untouchable” theme and song in its 25th anniversary year. It brought back the city from a recession in the ‘70s when New York was hurting and in trouble financially. Yet, for complicated political and economic reasons, New York, the State, was not experiencing success in travel and tourism. What do you do for a 25th encore that would be meaningful to this changed market?
Re Think: Just how meaningful and effective anymore was the “I Love NY” theme and song? Why were the 10 other regions of New York State, other than New York City, not realizing revenue from travelers in their own state and neighbor states? Insight: New York, known first and foremost as The City, had a great secret: The State, not NYC, offers some of the country’s premiere whitewater rafting (class 5), fishing, skiing, hiking (the largest state park in the country), canal barging, antiquing, and, with 115 vineyards, world-class winery touring. “I Love NY” communicated “Come to NYC” when it needed to say “Come to New York State.” Ring True Solution: Associate “I Love NY” with the State, not just the City. Challenge travelers’ perceptions and surprise them, memorably, with all the perceived “far-away” adventures that the State offered closer to home and budget. Rethink the role of the “I Love NY” theme song to the end of TV spots. Add that New York edge and attitude, “Hey, what did you expect? this is New York.” Result: Standing ovation in Albany from the previously disenfranchised 10 “other” regional directors of tourism. Hotel occupancy rose from 65.6% to 71%. Travel expenditures 35% to 32 billion. The only Northeast state in double digits for awareness.
Category Think: I love New York, The City. Insight: Why were 10 of the 11 regions of NY State not seeing an ROI? What were the deeper truths driving the market? How can we change the conversation to show The State has surprisingly more to offer? And, ah, by the way, does anyone really care about the anniversary of an ad campaign*? *the original objective was to tout the anniversary of the “ILNY� campaign.
Re Think-Ring True Position: New York State is everything to love.
(and like nothing you expected)
http://www.thezlotnickgroup.com/w_iloveny.html
Daring? Successful? What did you expect?
√ √ √ √
Standing ovation for governor in Albany. Hotel occupancy up 65.6% to 71%. Travel expenditures 35% to $32 billion. Only N.E. state in double digits for awareness.
Timberline
Problem / Solution
Situation: In an over-crowded fragrance category during a cluttered holiday market environment, re-position and re-introduce an old brand to a new, younger audience.
Re Think: How do you introduce a new scent in a market over-stimulated by scents? How do you sell romance and sex in a way that’s fresh and different and memorably tied into this brand’s name and essence? What is the essence of this essence? Insight: The woman who buys fragrance for the man is looking for the romance she wished he’d more actively pursue with her; the man is looking for the romance to be sexually rewarding, but at the same time he doesn’t want to be stereotyped as any more single-minded on this subject than the woman. The common insight here was that there is a time in romance when the couple is “allowed” to be more childlike, carefree, even silly -- a time, a place, a “timberline,” when what matters most is the playfulness, the innocence that builds to a charged energy between the two and the rewards of the hunt and gamesmanship, of getting together, of getting to The Kiss, and maybe, just maybe, to falling in love. The notion of “falling” as a hard-earned relief and reward, a giving up of fronts and affectations, of stopping the chase and letting things go. Ring True Solution: A chase that is playful, child-like, to counter the images and pressures of the adult world. The environment is natural, outdoors, to evoke an honesty, a genuineness in the hunt itself: no trappings of the typical singles scene. And a tie-in to the brand name, Timberline. Result: High awareness, successful re-launch, increased sales.
Category Think: Women buy men cologne so they (women) will be sexually seduced by men. Insight: Women are looking for something meaningful, to give more meaning to sex, return it to an act of love. A moment between the sexes when all that matters is pure romance, an uncomplicated sweetness, and at the same time, a fiery hot discovery of each other. A moment when they both see the forest for the trees, at a timberline of desire.
Re Think-Ring True Position: Timberline is pure unadulterated desire.
http://www.thezlotnickgroup.com/w_timberline.html
Timberline redefined sexy in an over-sexed market.
High awareness, successful re-launch, increased sales.
AmeriHealth
Problem / Solution
Situation: Healthcare, in general, receives low marks from its own customers on key drivers like trust and customer service. The competition had positioned themselves as “the answer (cure) to healthcare ills” or “your neighbor” or “your business partner” - in other words, as “THE Hero.” There was no credibility in these positions, and consumers rejected them outright. The other position expressed was “We’re Big” as in our network is big. But being “big,” being national, didn’t help and, in fact, fanned the flames of negatives.
Re Think: What if we just got out of our own way? What if we recognized that it’s the broker-business owner dynamic that is sacred? What if we recognized the real “hero” to be not us, not any healthcare carrier, but the broker, and behind them, the business owner and physicians? What if saw the value in the little, local, more personal experience against the big, chest-beating, self-hero-worshippers? Insight: Business owners saw the brokers as their most trusted partner in their healthcare plan decisions. Brokers saw healthcare carriers as the third wheel in the relationship. AmeriHealth, a relative unknown in northern Jersey, had developed a good reputation for being reliable and friendly in the south. Ring True Solution: Be the hero’s hero…with its attendant personality (and culture) of being naturally and refreshingly more down to earth, reliable, authentically local and human…in a little-big way: simply nicer. Result: Internally, a coming together of the company’s south and north cultures and goals. Externally, a breakthrough to brokers in the north that “hey, maybe these guys really are different” and trial to see if being nicer to deal with will trump the larger carriers’ networks that come with the bigger headaches, aggravation and loss of productivity (in their own client relationships and sales growth). Launched in summer, result was record Q4 sales.
Category Think: Healthcare carriers see themselves as The Heroes. Insight: The broker is small-business’s true Hero. Employer and broker have a trusted relationship that ought not be disrupted by the carrier. Serve, don’t usurp, this relationship. Let the broker be the more credible and enthusiastic advocate of the brand. Re Think-Ring True Position: AmeriHealth is the hero’s hero.
Our untraditional research and strategic branding and positioning report rethought the emotional and rational barriers of the 2 critical links: 1. The Fog of Healthcare 2. The SBO-Carrier-Broker relationship This engaging deck inspired fresh new strategic and creative ideas from both agency and client. It enthusiastically replaced the dry, little-used, off-the-shelf traditional research of me-too-ism’s that AmeriHealth and everyone in the category habitually (lazily) relied on for making marketing decisions.
Corcoran real estate
Problem / Solution
Situation: Real estate brokers were bored with their own sales pitches. All the buildings were generally the same, being sold with the same kind of marketing tools, based on the same kind of real estate marketing thinking. This became especially problematic when the property wasn’t in an ideal location. Our particular property, a 250-unit rental conversion, was in an “off” location and being targeted to first-time buyers, mostly young singles and couples. Corcoran needed to devise with the developer a blueprint for new design and structural renovations that would be “cool” in the eyes of their target buyer. When TZG entered the picture, blueprints were already far along, and TZG was asked to make sure all was indeed “cool.” Re Think: …just what this first-time, Y- and X-Generation market considered Cool. Ask the deeper questions, engage the deeper, more revealing conversation beyond the traditional focus groups. Challenge our own marketing-design group’s notion of “cool” because we ourselves weren’t the market, and the idea of cool was the driving factor for every decision that would distinguish this property from its competition which enjoyed superior locations. Insight: When we moved the conversation past the typical responses one gives to marketing researchers, our prospects shed new light on what they considered “cool.” And it wasn’t what our blueprints were showing. These 24-35 year olds led us to designs, venues, color, textures, feelings, that weren’t explored before. They gave us new insight into “cool” -- revealing to us their true emotional perspectives, which moved us 180-degrees from the slick “cool” of our original designs, to an eclectic, real, honest, ring-true place that helped us focus, re-imagine, and re-inspire our every decision under the new umbrella of customer insight: “Warm is Cool” Ring True Solution: Develop new blueprints, new design, a new culture that’s warm, true…authentically cool. Result: A change in the way the sales team approached/communicated this property. A new excitement among brokers who now had a fresh, invigorated story to tell, a story that didn’t sound salesy, because it rang true.
Category Think: Build it Cool (and they will come) Insight: Before you build it, you better understand your customer’s definition of what Cool really is‌
Re Think-Ring True Position: Warm is cool.
Our untraditional research and strategic branding and positioning report rethought and redefined this youthful first-time buyer’s view of “cool” -- which was very different from the collective perspective of the client and their design, architecture, and marketing team. To the client’s credit, they saw the value of TZG’s new insight and made an unprecedented 180˚ shift to align with our recommendations, starting with the building’s blueprints and design.
BEFORE: Lobby design prior to TZG customer insight.
AFTER: Lobby-as-Lounge based on TZG customer insight of “Warm is Cool.” Broke the mold in the real estate category. AFTER: TZG’s Lobby-as-Lounge concept based on insight/positioning “Warm is Cool”
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The following pages show Teaser+Reveal for outdoor boards
“...Unprecedented stuff.”
“This is marketing on another level for us...we changed our blueprints for goodness sake.” Corcoran Sunshine management, at presentation
Hackensack University Medical Center Problem / Solution Situation: Hackensack University Medical Center was this sleeping giant of a hospital, in the relatively quiet New York marketplace of New Jersey. And it happened to have one of the nation’s most respected pediatric oncology programs and breast care departments, as well as one of the best stem-cell treatment centers in the country. The Big Picture was its plan, led by its president, John Ferguson, a visionary healthcare leader.
Re Think: How do we connect emotionally with consumers who don’t come home from work to relax and watch TV or read their newspapers/magazines, to get a medical lesson? How do we do “reality TV” on a deeper, almost surreal level? How does the “surreal” play a role in a cancer patient’s view of life? In the role of the brand to its patients? How do you appeal to women procrastinating their breast exams – through scare tactics or by truly listening to the way they feel and asking why they feel that way? Insight: To be relevant, Hackensack had to be considered in the same breath as New York hospitals. Ring True Solution: Consumers pay attention when the images, the words, the mood and tone, are authentic. Tell the story from a grounding in reality, authentic emotions, but don’t ignore the communicative power, the fascination, the connection an individual feels in the surreal moments surrounding a hospital event. With the TV, explore the surreal imagery of a cancer survivor’s re-entry into work life, and let his silence speak volumes while the narrative of his own son resonate on another authentic level. Let the value of Hackensack’s stem cell treatment, and all its qualities in various areas, come through naturally without “selling” but “telling” the emotional story more authentically. Result: Awareness up for Hackensack’s capabilities not just in cancer treatment, but overall.
Category Think: Serious health problem? Go to NYC! Insight: People will consider a New Jersey hospital for serious needs if they feel it is sophisticated and authoritative in specialty areas. They will absorb and recall surreal emotional moments resolved by real, rational reasons to believe. Re Think-Ring True Position: Hackensack is the NY hospital, in NJ.
The most uncomfortable part of a breast examination is felt here.
Not here.
http://www.thezlotnickgroup.com/w_hackensack.html
“What Jan did was look and listen, like no one ever saw and heard before.� Anne Marie Campbell, VP, Public Affairs, Hackensack Univ Med Cntr
Mount Sinai, NY Presbyterian, Beth Israel‌Hackensack?!
Awareness of Hackensack by top national and New York doctors and their patients. Respect, credibility, authenticity.
Lifetime Studios
Problem / Solution
Situation: Lifetime Studios needed to distinguish itself from other, better-known production studios located in Manhattan and Los Angeles.
Re Think: Is the producer looking for studios that compete on square footage alone? Or on the proximity to the hot restaurants and nightlife? What’s going through the producer’s head, and heart? What does this customer really want and need? What drives producers and directors emotionally? What bonds Lifetime and its customers? Insight: Beyond location, space, technology, communications, and facilities, a producer needs to feel inspired about their choice of production studio. It had to feel right — be a creative place where a show on paper could find that magic chemistry and become a hit. Ring True Solution: Be proud and true to yourself, Lifetime. Authentically communicate your brand essence: a legendary, inspirational heritage and a facility that rivals NASA for technology. Marry the two and appeal to Lifetime’s prospects on two emotional levels: 1. Total confidence, technologically. 2. A magical place where success can happen. Result: Space-leasing rate up 20% with built-in trust, personality, and brand value. Cool.
Category Think: Production space is production space… Insight: A producer has to make a million-to-one shot happen. She has to make magic happen. How? Where? Aha! The “where” is how magic happens! The “where” must offer something more, something intangible, beyond mere square footage. Re Think-Ring True Position: Lifetime creates the magic. (that can produce a hit)
Lifetime = Magic = Sales. Very cool.
Recast the conversation: from producers talking about square footage to the buzz of studio space as an emotional benefit, a medium, and indeed, a brilliant stroke of casting all its own: a character, a place, where magic (a hit show) can happen.
BMW Motorcycles
Problem / Solution
Situation: BMW motorcycles were always seen as very serious machines. This was a good thing for the kind of high-performance, top-engineered motorcycles they’d been selling for 100 years. With the R1200C, they were attempting to enter for the first time the “Cruiser” category: a segment owned by Harley-Davidson with bikes like their famous Fat Boy, devoted to bike enthusiasts who put looking great and sounding loud ahead of performance and engineering.
Re Think: How could we loosen up BMW and make a hairpin turn in tactics without skidding off the path of their 100-year success based on engineering superiority? What was the emotional connection between a BMW rider and the bike he said he shunned: the Harley? (Fat Boy, the popular model.) Insight: The BMW rider secretly admired Harley for its sheer glamour, its beauty, even though he viewed it as “surface beauty” and incomparable to the real beauty of the near-perfection of a BMW bike. To have a glamorous “Harley” that was as exquisitely engineered as a BMW was a deep, repressed fantasy. On the other side, the Harley rider secretly desired his bike to be as reliable and highperforming as a BMW. Here was, for the first time in BMW’s history, a bike engineered to ride both fantasies. A cruiser that delivered on all emotional, and rational, cylinders. Ring True Solution: Communicate an edgy, fun attitude. Say: “We’re glamorous, sexy fun, and oh, yeah, we’ll eat Harley’s lunch while they eat our dust.” In other words, give the Cruiser customer all the beauty and glamour he wants, but give him BMW’s legendary performance to boot. Result: BMW’s successful launch into a totally new riding category in its 100-year history. Inroads into the lucrative, growing Cruiser market. And a successful marriage between BMW’s image of engineering/performance and a new sense of fun and glamour.
Category Think: Cruisers and BMW in same sentence!? Insight: BMW riders carry a secret torch for Harley and the Cruiser (low-riding “posing� bikes). Harley riders grudgingly respect BMW reliability and engineering. What if BMW alchemized the two fantasies of mindblowing engineering and hot+heavy-metal sex appeal? What if they showed their own sexy-fun side and challenged the rebel in language very unGerman-like? Re Think-Ring True Position: The ultimate (sexy-fun) riding machine.
BMW shifts gears. Catches Harley by surprise.
BMW’s successful launch into a totally new riding category in its 100-year history. Inroads into the lucrative, growing Cruiser market. And a successful marriage between BMW’s image of engineering/performance and a new sense of fun and glamour.
Consumer Reports WebWatch
Problem / Solution
Situation: Consumer WebWatch (CWW), a project of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, was created through foundation funding to fix a broken trust between consumers and online brands. The objective was to win pledges from companies to commit to five basic CWW guidelines for their websites. The charge was to accomplish this through an introductory awareness campaign.
Re Think: Why no signed commitments after 12 months? What constituted a “pledge” anyway? Who were the real decision makers? What was their life like, their decision-making processes? How could we move CWW to The Top of the “To Do” List of each C-level decision maker? Insight: A close look into CWW’s business plan revealed CWW would lose funding, basically go out of business, if it didn’t get 95 pledges before the end of its 3-year funding. Our business analysis redirected the effort from an awareness campaign to a tactical “Get 95 Pledges or Die” campaign. Ring True Solution: Execute a Tactical, Direct-Response campaign: Full-Size proofs presented in person, emailed, and couriered in giant envelopes directly to C-Level decision makers to elicit one response: “Holy Shit, This is Serious, Get Everybody in Here Now.” Attached to proofs was a note indicating this was the ad ready to run and be seen by customers, board members and shareholders in a national media blitz of 10 prominent newspapers, including their local regional papers and The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Result: Got 95 pledges. Got them 18 months ahead of schedule. Got them on budget.
Category Think: Some watchdogs are all bark. Insight: To get people to do a good thing, sometimes you need to show them what can happen if they do nothing at all. Re Think-Ring True Position: Consumer WebWatch is all teeth.
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Tough Solution. Direct Results.
Heard in the C-Suite: “Whoa, down boy!” Forced decision makers to make decisions and get pledged up. Respect for CWW as authentic watchdog. Exceeded objective of 95 pledges, 18 months ahead of schedule.
Ironbound Bank
Problem / Solution
Situation: A $120 million community bank that had either a negative or blank image among businesses and the public, depending on their experience with its prior board of directors. Ironbound rebuilt its board and resolved to communicate that it was a different place of business.
Re Think: What made the Ironbound Bank prospect tick? What were the deeper truths about this customer in this community? How do you build trust between this customer and a bank? Insight: Despite a blue-collar label, the people of Ironbound are entrepreneurs and hard-working men and women who intend their work to pay off, for their families. They are proud, successful, communitycentered, and understand the importance of customer service in making a business go. Ring True Solution: Establish a dialog with this customer. Relate to their lives. To their ambitions. Create an authentic feeling that this is a bank that understands their dreams. Then back it up with the experience. Give this customer a reason to believe. Create a campaign that communicates, with personality, humor, that Ironbound Bank is a place where they’ll feel comfortable doing business. And get help to be a success. Result: A positive, welcoming personality where once there were blank walls and faceless tellers. An increase in commercial and personal accounts, revenue, and brand value, as evidenced by a highly profitable sale of its brand to a multibillion-dollar bank (2.5 x book value).
Category Think: Banks are all the same, they just want our money, they’ll never really understand what we’re really about. Insight: There was something about the town of Ironbound. A deeper truth about its people, relationship to family, work, and community. And no bank was truly getting this, or even trying… Re Think-Ring True Position: Ironbound Bank is success. (Yours.)
Meet your neighbor: a bank focused on your own success.
A positive, welcoming personality where once there were blank walls and faceless tellers. An increase in commercial and personal accounts, revenue, and brand value, as evidenced by a highly profitable sale (2.5 x book value) to a larger bank.
Countybank
Problem / Solution
Situation: Countybank, located in Greenville, South Carolina, wanted to grow its business: by relationships. Its customized business banking service was called The BizKit. This birthed the idea of delivering good ol’ southern hospitality in the form a hot, fresh biscuit. Each biscuit could be custom ordered “as they like” -- plain, ham, chicken, or sausage. Traditionally, Countybank’s media, like outdoor, would be loaded with phone numbers, Website address and features and benefits. It was too much and was conflicting with the authentic message they wanted their prospects to feel: Countybank is a fresh and simpler bank to deal with.
Re Think: How could we speak simpler in the messaging, yet engage and peak curiosity? How could we drive people to the microsite without the usual bank-speak and over-load of information? Insight: Countybank’s instinct for building an authentic relationship was remarkable in the bank category: simple, neighborly, no fine print and strings attached. Ring True Solution: A campaign that authenticated their best instinct. Simple yet engaging messages that would peak prospects’ interest and then reward them by leading them to simple, engaging truth: Countybank is just saying hi and offering you a honest simple biscuit, any way you like it. No strings. Result: Hundreds of qualified orders from businesses in both cities. From which relationships were founded, BizKits sold, and trusted business ties were established.
Category Think: Banks can fail. They can’t be trusted with my money. There’s no talking to them. Insight: People rebuild relationships when conversation happens: up close and personal, one on one, in real time. ReThink-RingTrue Position: You can talk to the people at Countybank.
Outdoor #1: Teaser to peak curiosity and buzz
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Outdoor #2: Direct people to microsite Outdoor #2: Direct Reader to Microsite
Microsite, Page 1
Microsite, Page 2
Microsite, Page 3
Microsite, Page 4
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Outdoor #3: for duration of campaign
“We wanted to do something different, stand out from the crowd. Zlotnick showed us how to do this and, at the same time, build on our core identity as a trusted local bank.� Bill Jenkins, Marketing Director, Countybank, Greenville, S.C.
When your customers are online‌ They want to feel like they’re the only ones in your store. They expect exclusive, personal attention and a remarkable experience any hour of any day, every time they visit.
http://www.cleanishappy.com
http://www.limeinteractive.com/red212/
http://www.limeinteractive.com/blistex
http://www.sohogem.com
thank you,
jan@thezlotnickgroup.com mobile: 973.454.8536
References Beau Brendler, Consumer Reports WebWatch brenbe@consumer.org 914.378.2018 Sheryl Goldstein, About.com 212.204.1476 sgoldstein@about.com Laurie Macomber,former VP, Ilford Photo laurie@blueskiesmktg.com 845-627-2174 Ed Cruz, President, E.E. Cruz (formerly CEO, Ironbound Bank) edcruz@eecruz.com 732.946.9452 Ted Parrick, Director of Brand Strategy, Colangelo (Schick) tparrack@colangelo-sm.com 203.662-7105 Jarrett White, Corcoran Sunshine Jarrett.White@corcoransunshine.com 212.634.6514 Stephen Bass, Guess Leather, XOXO, Avanti Fashions sbass@hermankay.com 212.239.2025 ext 360 John McGovern, McGovern and Smith, Alenia Aeronautica JJM1222@aol.com 202.955-6062 / 669-6664 Michael Etkin, Attorney at Law, Lowenstein Sandler, PC metkin@lowenstein.com 973.597-2500, Ext. 2259 Ian Palmer, Infotrieve ian.palmer@yahoo.com ipalmer@infotrieve.com 310.445.3038 / 415.533.8308 Adam Tihany, Adam Tihany International mail@tihanydesign.com 212.366.6901 / 366.5544 Neville Bugwadia, Empire State Business Dev (I Love NY) nbugwadia@empire.state.ny.us 212.803.3100