Collateral
Marketing collateral is the media used to support the sales of a product or service—sales material. Wikipedia says the term "collateral" specifically refers to brochures or sell sheets developed as sales support tools. Does it have to be a sell sheet?
The Carney Group likes to expand the outside edges of this definition. Here is a collection of some of our most successful projects loosely categorized as collateral.
CHS Corporation came to us, “You want to work on this?” they said.
That’s an odd way to approach a marketing firm with a project. As we dug into this two tiered market development project we found that it had been around for a few years and hadn’t returned enough to pay for the postage.
The Carney Group’s self-imposed directive—Make it easy to shop. Come to think of it, we say that whenever we’re speaking directly to the buying public.
The redesign of the Double Duty Rewards program increased sales response by fifty times.
Look back here, soon, for a comprehensive white paper on the astonishing project.
Ben Manilla Productions and Public Radio International produced a thirteen week radio series on The Blues. Dan Jensen, our contact with PRI at the time, had just been to Nashville Tennessee to see Hatch Show prints and encouraged The Carney Group to study their work for the production of the booklet and CD imprints for this project.
His Holiness, The Dalai Lama made his first visit to Minnesota in 2001. The Carney Group was asked to produce all of the material for the visit. We made posters in several sizes, brochures, security badges, directional hand outs and websites.
We were invited to many of the events and enjoyed His Holiness so much. Who wouldn’t? The Dalai Lama interesting, deeply spiritual and very funny. If this holy-man thing doesn’t work out he could try stand-up comedy.
When iPods were first introduced, broadcasters called them “Radio Killers.” The Carney Group was tasked to explain this growing phenomenon to the worried broadcast world. We decided that color was the tool that would convey the information we were trying to get across. The finished piece was a tabloid rainbow of definitions, explanations and anecdotes to ease the worries and prepare our audience for a revolution that was already upon them.
Donaldson Filtration developed a revolutionary new core for Detroit’s high performance automotive products. Besides being a cleaner, more efficient filter it was easier to redesign and able to be made into any shape a new auto might require. This product could both improve the performance of new cars and trucks and significantly cut design time.
Now, how to get auto design engineers to notice? How about inviting them to a weekend at performance driving school? The direct mail response rate was seventeen percent.
Variable data printing, exciting photography and a great product are all factors, but some offers just sell themselves.
Onsite Sewage Treatment Program…Maybe this isn’t technically collateral, but this is an important project.
Every time we involve ourselves in a new project, especially a long range one, we become shirt-tail experts in the subject matter. This one is no exception.
Yes this will forever be the s**t project.
The legendary artist and party host, Brant Kingman was asked to bring his party planning talents to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The invitation said starting at 9pm and ending at 2am, but this crowd doesn’t get up early and always stays past closing.
It was an evening. It was a morning. It was the beginning of years of crazy adventures. What an era!
Thanks, Brant.
Anchor Block said they wanted to send 300,000 direct mail pieces for the Minneapolis/St Paul area.
“You’ll send most of these to renters who are never going to install pavers.”
They argued that they had sent out mailers before and if they wanted to get the number of responses they needed they had to send out that many to get a one percent response.
We researched who might buy these products. Our first mailing was to families who had purchased half million dollar homes between one and two years ago. They had been in their homes long enough to hate their driveways or realize they needed a patio. The list was ten thousand names. The response was five percent.
According to oral tradition, the Ojibwe, centuries ago, were instructed to find the place where "the food grows on the water”.
This led them to the northern inland lakes of the Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota where flowing fields of manoomin, wild rice, were found in abundance.
For centuries the wild rice has grown and has been harvested from these northern lakes in the same way. Now, some fool wants to introduce genetically modified wild rice to these same lakes. GMO wild rice?!
This poster featuring the amazing work of, artist, Rabbit Strickland was made in two versions, the art version with little type and message and the propaganda version. Both were in support of keeping wild rice wild.
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