Market Research : Innovation + Job News

Sunrise Advertising, in line with their tenth year anniversary, has unveiled a new look and positioning designed to better reflect their expertise with established brands. The full-service marketing and advertising agency, located in downtown Cincinnati, has rolled out the rebranding throughout the agency’s collateral and unveiled a new website in August. This marks the first time in the company’s history that they have gone through such a process.
 
“As we prepared for our tenth year in business, we spent a considerable amount of time evaluating our corporate direction and our greatest opportunity for continued growth and success,” explains CEO Brian McHale. “Strategic planning is about making choices—it’s probably more important to agree on what you’re NOT going to do as it is to decide what you will do as a company.”
 
The new positioning, dubbed "Energizing Established Brands," calls out the agency’s specific area of expertise.
 
“At Sunrise, we pride ourselves in our ability to help give everyone’s favorite brands succinct messaging and a relatable personality with their key audiences,” McHale says. “It’s only appropriate that we also re-energize our look and feel to reinforce our expertise in helping companies who want to maximize their reach in a timely, relevant way.”
 
Sunrise’s clients include Skyline Chili, Cintas, US Bank, the Cincinnati USA Regional Tourism Network and more.
 
“We have a strategic process called a New Day Process that we used to guide us,” McHale says. “Throughout our history, we have had a tremendous amount of success energizing established brands, so it is a natural place for us to live. It is also a position we can own, as we are the only ad agency in the country with this focus. It is a true differentiator for us.”
 
CEO McHale has owned the company since 2008, but has been in the marketing industry for 25 years. Previously, he worked on the production side in California for the NBC Network, working on TV shows like "The Tonight Show" and "Wheel of Fortune" before returning to the Midwest and getting into the ad agency business. He hasn’t looked back since.
 
“2014 is already shaping up to be a very interesting year for Sunrise,” McHale says. “It will be a year to continue to fine tune and focus the Sunrise brand. We also have several new clients that have recently committed to work with us, like Ashley Furniture Homestores and Morris Furniture, so next year will be a year where we will get to roll out our initial thinking for those brands. I’m looking forward to our brand’s continued evolution.”


Michael Sarason

Life events, such as getting married, having a baby, buying a house or retiring, can impact the financial decisions individuals make. 
 
Akron-based Segmint offers software that confidentially analyzes and interprets consumer spending information. Using this information, financial institutions can build digital relationships with their clients, offering them specific products and services customized to meet their needs. These opportunities can lead to a competitive advantage.
 
“Instead of overwhelming customers with a constant stream of advertising messages, this enables financial institutions to satisfy consumer demand for personalized service and simplicity through highly-targeted offers exactly at the time their customers are ready to act,” explains Rob Heiser, Segmint President and CEO. “Financial institutions can optimize their marketing budget by delivering individualized online advertising campaigns to their customers quickly and efficiently.”
 
Segmint uses its patented marketing technologies to precisely target bank customers and assign Key Lifestyle Indicators ™ (KLIs) to them, he states. “These identifiers, coupled with our auto analytics platform, campaign management tool and ad delivery capabilities, enable financial institutions to effectively reach customers with timely and relevant offers on the bank’s website or online.”
 
What about maintaining customer confidentiality? “We respect the anonymity of personal information and rigorously adhere to privacy and security regulations,” Heiser notes. “All personally identifiable information remains secure with the financial institution through anonymous numeric codes assigned to each customer.”
 
Segmint’s current client base includes more than 60 credit unions, financial institutions and financial tech companies throughout the U.S.  Established in 2008, Segmint has 28 employees and has received Ohio Third Frontier funding.


Writer: Lynne Meyer

Big, established brands can get stale, so in the fast-changing and hyper-competitive consumer products market, rapid, results-oriented market research is a real asset for large brands.

Olivetree Research in Hyde Park builds on founder Carol Shea's decades of experience in consumer marketing research to help brands shake things up a little. Olivetree helps find new answers to the perennial question: What do consumers REALLY want?

Shea started Olivetree Research about 11 years ago, not long after Sept. 11, 2001.

"It was the right time for me to make a split from my former company," she says. "I'd been in marketing research for 25 years, and had been thinking about starting my own business for a long time. Sept. 11 was a wake-up call for living every day the way you want."

Additionally, Shea served as adjunct faculty of the Williams College of Business at Xavier University as a former member of the Advisory Council to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Olivetree works with large and mid-size local firms that are looking to solve marketing and sales challenges that stunt growth.

"We're working with companies that are committed to positioning new product development that meets the needs of their consumers," Shea says. "We work with companies who want to spend time up-front on research, understand what positioning is and are willing to engage in that process."

Through her work, Shea has helped brand everything from pickles to neighborhoods, all by finding what customers want and what the company needs to do to market and meet those needs.

Companies often come to her when their marketing efforts are flagging, they have a decline in sales or a new competitor enters the market. With Olivetree, companies look to strengthen their brand, reinforce customer loyalty, expand into new markets or develop new products and services.

The market research process takes about three to six months, and can continue over years as a company evolves. In addition to consumer products, Shea often works with healthcare and financial services agencies.

This year, Shea is growing her own business by starting an online training company that will offer courses for new market researchers.

"It will help them understand what techniques work best in certain situations," she says. "The training will help them have confidence in their position. It can be very difficult for someone new in market research to speak with authority on how you should proceed based on the (research) results."

Shea plans to launch the new company sometime later this year.

By Feoshia H. Davis
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This story was originally published in Soapbox, hiVelocity's sister publication in Cincinnati.