CASE STUDIES
Below are some examples of how we’ve helped our clients succeed - in a variety of different ways.
Radiaflect
Challenge:
In spite of its outstanding performance in attics and as a housewrap, reflective insulation was relatively unknown to consumers. Gorell wanted to sell ESP’s Low-E®, the premiere product in the category, via its network of independent dealers, but was having little luck generating dealer interest.
Approach:
WaveGuide Studios felt that prospective dealers would be more enthusiastic about selling the product if it came with a complete sales and marketing program behind it: one that clearly explained the product and its benefits to homeowners, made dealers comfortable that there was strong support behind it, and provided sales reps with tools to succeed. We developed a private label brand, Radiaflect, to create exclusivity, and surrounded it with the most complete program in the entire home improvement category: TV and radio spots; print advertising, sell sheets, and leave-behind brochures; individual websites for each dealer with extensive video; a demonstration unit for trade shows and in-home sales; posters, banners, sample postcards, yard signs, door hangers and billboards; a complete home show package, including a booth and demo videos; sales and installation training manuals, including a practice audio CD; and an interactive computer/iPad in-home sales presentation featuring a savings estimator which took parameters of the customer’s home and estimated monthly savings and payback.
Results:
In less than nine months, Gorell signed up over 130 home improvement companies to sell Radiaflect, and sales increased an average of 34% per month. Most dealers said that while they were very impressed with the product, it was the program that sold them on the idea of offering and installing Radiaflect. Several went out of their way to contact us and call it “the best program they’d ever seen.”
Tennessee WIC
Challenge:
During the economic downturn, thousands of women with young children became eligible for Tennessee WIC, a federally funded program administered by the Tennessee Health Department. WIC provides women and their children under five with healthy, nutritious food via vouchers that allow the purchase of certain vegetables, fruits, whole-grain foods and more at specific times and in specific quantities. With budgets tight and no means to add staff, the Tennessee WIC offices and clinics were overwhelmed by inquiries from thousands of confused vendors and participants trying to work their way through the complexities of the program. Tennessee received a Federal grant to contract focus group research and an introductory video that would explain the program, deal with the most frequently encountered issues, and create a strong, positive impression of the program to both participants and vendors.
Approach:
WaveGuide Studios won the bid for both the research and the video. Tennessee WIC had requested a video featuring role-play scenarios, which was the approach taken by virtually every other state, but WaveGuide Studios proposed and produced something radically different – a fast-paced presentation produced entirely of graphics and animation, using still photographs and graphic elements to explain the program. Divided into nine short segments, the video held the viewer’s attention, even through repeated viewings in a clinic waiting room. The modular approach allowed viewers to watch particular segments relevant to their specific questions, and also made it inexpensive to produce seamless updated versions when the WIC program changed, as when EBT cards were mandated by the Federal government.
Results:
Used by WIC clinic personnel in waiting rooms, clinic settings and in outreach programs, the video was extremely well received by staff, participants and vendors. The video far surpassed the goals set for it, and the Tennessee WIC staff was thoroughly delighted with the results. They advised WaveGuide Studios to offer customized versions to other states – so far, versions for Delaware, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, Kansas, the District of Columbia and the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona have been produced, and several other state WIC agencies have expressed a desire for their own versions.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Challenge:
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is one of America’s best employers, and employee communication has been a key part of that success. Children’s wanted a production partner to make their “town hall” meetings and employee communication videos more engaging, informative and memorable.
Approach:
WaveGuide Studios worked together with Children’s to move away from traditional, “talking head interview” videos, developing new concepts for each project that fit the subject matter in an engaging and entertaining way. A couple of examples:
Working with the Nurse-Physician Relations Task Force, WaveGuide Studios produced Melissa’s Story, a drama that followed a nine-year old patient through the same day twice: first being treated by a staff hobbled by poor communication (she wound up in Intensive care), and then with those problems corrected, resulting in a much better patient outcome.
For the organization’s annual end-of-year celebration, instead of a laundry-list video of achievements and successes, WaveGuide Studios created a farcical comedy: "Childrens HealthSCARE!," a “tabloid-journalism” show in which the hard-hitting, investigative reporters attempt to uncover scandal at Children’s but are brought up short at every turn.
Results:
Children’s reported that viewer response was enthusiastic and retention was dramatically higher than in pre-WaveGuide Studios programs. "Children’s HeathSCARE" won Telly and MCA-I media awards. Children’s has shared "Melissa’s Story", winner of a Davey Award and an MCA-I International award, with dozens of children’s hospitals around the world, and they report physician/nurse relations improved significantly beyond Task Force goals.
Dixie HomeCrafters / GutterGuard
Challenge:
In 2000, using a spot produced by a local TV station, GutterGuard averaged only three calls a week despite a heavy local schedule on Good Morning America. But when they called WaveGuide Studios, they were still wary of actually spending money on spot production.
Approach:
WaveGuide Studios developed an ultra low-budget concept that used the client’s home as a location, non-professional talent and a few items out of the NYU street production bag of tricks. We created a spot that looked a lot more expensive than it was, established the need for clog-free gutters and showed the advantages of GutterGuard over competing systems in a clear, compelling way.
Results:
The first week, running the WaveGuide Studios spot with the same media schedule as the station-produced spot, GutterGuard received fifty-seven calls and closed more than forty sales. Sales soon surpassed one million dollars per month. WaveGuide Studios then created a comprehensive advertising and brand-building campaign, including second generation, high production value TV spots, sales support DVDs, print advertising, collateral and sales aids. GutterGuard opened offices in Nashville, Charlotte, Columbus, Greenville, Memphis, Philadelphia and Baltimore. In each new city, they dominated the market in less than six months. Then the parent company, Dixie HomeCrafters, asked us to take over their marketing creative and production. Overall, in less than four years, annual company sales grew more than tenfold to over $130,000,000, making Dixie/GutterGuard the second largest home improvement contractor in the USA.
Idbids, LLC
Challenge:
The idbids are three lovable, eco-friendly characters named Scout, Lola and Waverly. They were ready to take the toy world by storm. But the International Licensing Show in New York, the world’s greatest launching pad for new characters, is also one of the most competitive places to audition for the big time. The tiny idbids could have been swamped by Time Warner, Marvel Comics and all the major movie studios.
Approach:
With almost no budget to work with, WaveGuide Studios decided to take the “audition” idea literally, creating 3D animated versions of the idbids and helping them to create a “sizzle” reel for prospective licensees. Of course, our little friends weren’t really clear on what it is they were supposed to do – after all, they just want kids to take “iddy biddy steps” to make the world a cleaner, greener place.
Results:
The finished video was so charming, innocent and downright funny that not only did it draw huge crowds at the tiny idbids booth, the organizers of the ILS selected it to be one of the very few videos playing in rotation on the screens at the entrance to the trade show floor, creating thousands of impressions and drawing even more people to the booth.
The idbids were one of the hits of the show, and major players in the toy, educational and entertainment arenas opened licensing discussions with Idbids, LLC.
Stanley Tools
Challenge:
Stanley Tools Professional Mechanics Tools division needed a way to get in front of major prospects, but many companies had policies prohibiting on site sales presentations.
Approach:
A hand tool safety program, “Give Safety a Hand”, allowed Stanley to present safety seminars that featured the proper use of all the latest Stanley professional tools. The centerpiece of the program was a series of videos written and produced by WaveGuide Studios, starring Dean Johnson, host of PBS’s HomeTime. The videos, each on a different class of tools, allowed Stanley to visit mechanics and supervisors five times over the course of the seminar series, featuring hands-on demos of the complete product range.
Results:
The program was highly successful on a number of levels. Stanley had been shut out of Chrysler’s North American Facilities prior to “Give Safety a Hand”. Afterwards, Stanley became a top hand tool supplier for Chrysler and “GSAH” became the official hand tool safety program for the entire company. The videos won the Stanley President’s Award for the best program or initiative company-wide, and they became very popular with trade and technical schools across the country. In fact, this “side benefit” – sales of videos to educational institutions – more than offset the entire cost of developing, producing and distributing the video series.
