ClearRiver Advertising and Marketing

“Your 15 Minutes of Fame Awaits” case study

By: Keith Heustis

For more than 50 years ClearRiver Advertising and Marketing has provided creative services for a wide range of clients. Located in Midland, Mich. ClearRiver recently attended The Great Lakes Bay Regional Expo, a yearly business event that hosts a variety of businesses from the Midland, Bay City and Saginaw area. The expo provides a great opportunity for face-to-face marketing and networking with area businesses, and the opportunity to demonstrate new products and services to the almost 3,000 visitors that come through the doors during the one day event.

The Challenge:

As the world advances toward a more digital landscape, ClearRiver has remained on the cutting edge of this burgeoning technological market with its superb web and digital photography services.

Even with a confident position in our market area ClearRiver is always on the lookout for ways to communicate and promote its services within the context of our  “Get it done right. Now.” philosophy in a real and tangible way. The business expo provided a great promotional opportunity for ClearRiver in which we set out to achieve the following goals:

1. Build awareness and interest in ClearRiver
2. Showcase ClearRiver’s photography and Web capabilities
3. Gather names and e-mail addresses for e-mail marketing campaigns

The Solution:

We knew that to be successful in attaining these goals, we would need to provide the visitors with a powerful and meaningful demonstration of how we “Get it done right. Now.” The demonstration had to directly benefit the visitor and at the same time showcase our digital capabilities in photo and Web. Not an easy task! This meant that the old tricks of handing out free slinkies and office supplies all while standing there and smiling wouldn’t be enough. We needed to provide something that visitors would actually want and create a buzz. Out of these requirements an idea was born that we dubbed, “Your 15 Minutes of Fame Awaits!”

Here’s how it worked:

The idea played off the core human desire that most of us have of being important and famous. Hence, “Your 15 minutes of Fame Awaits!” enticed expo visitors to experience that sensation of fame by placing their image on the cover of magazine. We made this possible by setting up a mini photography studio in our booth. The visitor stepped into our booth and gave us a business card or filled out a brief form asking for his or her name and e-mail address. Then they chose a prop from an assortment that ranged from a sledgehammer to a wireless Mac keyboard. Next our Photographer positioned the visitor in front of a magazine cover background and snapped a picture that loaded up directly in an adjacent computer. We then did some minor edits in Photoshop that included adding the subject’s name and various sub heads. The images were then saved in a high-res format and finally uploaded to our Web site and made available for immediate download. Talk about “Getting it done right. Now!” As you can see from the examples below each cover turned out great.

The true beauty of “Your 15 Minutes of Fame!” is found in the way that we handled delivery of the final product. We created a landing page along with a series of pages on our Web site that were tailored specifically for this event. We made it as easy as possible for someone to find their photo and quickly download it utilizing built in search and browsing capabilities. By sending visitors to our Web site to retrieve their photos it benefited ClearRiver in the following ways:

1. Provided us with an e-mail address to use in our e-mail campaigns.
2. Drove people to our Web site quadrupling our normal traffic stats and giving visitors the opportunity to see more of our work.
3. Allowed onlookers to see first hand how the Web sites created by ClearRiver are easy to use and update.

The Results:

ClearRiver met and exceeded all of its goals.

We built awareness and interest in ClearRiver with everyone that came through our booth. It was a friendly, laid back environment that provided lots of laughs and a chance for us to really break the ice with folks. People could see first hand how we worked and even got a taste of what it was like to work with us.

Our digital photography and Web services were highlighted in a brilliant way that was fun and visitor focused. Everyone got to see how easy our Web site was to use and the ease with which their images were edited and uploaded.

By the end of the day this exercise yielded a plethora of names and e-mail address and has already produced a few serious inquires into our services.

If you’re looking for creative solutions like this to your marketing and advertising needs feel free to contact us! We’d love to help in any way we can.

Best regards,

Keith Heustis

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