2009 Projects
Catacoustic Consort
The Catacoustic Consort Capstone was a study of the American music industry with broad applicability across many other industries. The Catacoustic Consort, a Cincinnati-based organization specializing in the performance of early music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, presented the challenge to strengthen the long-term sustainability of the organization by increasing and broadening its local and national audience. The Capstone project involved discovering and exploring new ways for the Catacoustic Consort to reach previously untapped market segments while bolstering interest among the current audience.
CIMx
CIMx is moving toward marketing a product, Interax, to mid-market aerospace and defense companies. Given that the perceived value proposition can vary by company stakeholders (manufacturing operations, corporate management, and information technology), CIMx needs a clear and concise way to target messages to its clients. The project focused on how CIMx can gain a promising brand image. The consultant helped the company to develop an elevator speech, which clearly define the company, launch a new tagline and identify website improvements to increase traffic.
Cincinnati Museum of Advertising
The Cincinnati Museum of Advertising is the brainchild of online marketing guru, Pete Blackshaw. The museum aims to bring attention to Cincinnati as a global hub of advertising and branding. The consultant constructed a marketing plan and volunteers formed committees in the following areas to ensure the success of the museum: fundraising, public relations, donors (including collecting content) and promotion. Advertising agencies and advertisers were encouraged to submit content to the museum.
Cincinnati Ballet
Cincinnati Ballet faces a challenge similar to many arts organizations – an aging patron base. Younger potential arts patrons (age 21-45) are accustomed to many entertainment opportunities and may not consider the Ballet for entertainment. To thrive and prosper, the Ballet must evaluate its current standing with younger patrons and utilize new ways to connect with this audience. Using various forms of qualitative and quantitative research, this project sought to understand the current audience attending Ballet performances and what current marketing efforts were most effective in reaching that audience. The consultant examined current entertainment choices younger patrons make, how they find out about entertainment options, current perceptions of ballet and the Cincinnati Ballet, and tested potential programs to attract this audience. The final result was a strategic marketing plan.
City Ministries
In 2001, City Ministries formed through the merger of City Gospel Mission and CityCURE. However, each organization still used independent logos, and the name “City Ministries” was primarily used internally. This resulted in confusion of the overall identity and a lack of branding architecture. The Capstone research determined if the organization should operate under a single or dual umbrella brand, and how this would impact the structure of its multiple programs. An external brand awareness survey, phone interviews, focus groups and an internal cultural audit were conducted. Current names and new names for the organization were tested to determine their strengths. Following primary research, a branding manual was developed that contained a new logo, branding architecture, a subsystem for programs, and examples of how the architecture could be applied to both web and print. An internal and external communication plan was also developed, along with a feedback mechanism.
Dramakinetics of Cincinnati
Dramakinetics of Cincinnati is a nonprofit organization seeking to purposefully include those with and without disabilities in a meaningful way. By offering performing arts classes throughout the Greater Cincinnati area, Dramakinetics offers those with special and typical needs a creative outlet to improve their developmental skills. Dramakinetics aspires to become a leading national organization. To do so, they came to UC seeking new ways to connect, cultivate and convert new sources of funding.
EmotivEnergy
A Cincinnati-based consulting firm, EmotivEnergy focuses on energy audits for residential and commercial properties with the purpose of increasing energy efficiency. While currently functioning as an independent third-party consultant, the owner wished to expand to a supplier role to offer differentiation in this increasingly competitive market. One product the company wanted to market was a solar window system that acts as an extension to existing windows in a home or business. The purpose of the Capstone was to determine the best go-to-market strategy for this product, with a focus on preserving the integrity of the consultancy and building a memorable brand in the eyes of consumers.
Hill-Rom Inc.
Hill-Rom Inc. is a hospital equipment manufacturer based in Batesville, Indiana. With a renewed focus on new business development, they are faced with monitoring the success of each product launch. The Capstone objective was to develop a systemic approach for monitoring the success of each product, measuring the performance in the marketplace against the original business case, and clearly communicating the progress back to the organization at all levels (project team, middle management and senior management). As a final task the student consultant designed a Marketing Product Launch Metric Dashboard.
Mathis Foundation for Children
The Mathis Foundation for Children is a Cincinnati-based nonprofit agency that assists children in crisis — those that have been abused or neglected — and have been placed in a foster or adoptive care setting. Stability is seen as a key factor for assisting children in substitute care. The foundation holds special events to raise money for sponsored children and their education. Sherrie Mathis and Mike Mathis, a former NBA official, established the foundation in 1996 because of their family’s commitment to serving this group of children. The Mathis Foundation for Children Capstone project involved brand development, marketing communications planning, and strategies to improve fundraising.
Northlich
The media landscape is rapidly changing in response to today’s informed consumer. Marketers are seeking new and cost-efficient approaches to effectively reach and engage their target consumer. The aim of this project was to develop a proprietary media research lab that mines category, brand and consumer insights and ultimately guide Northlich’s media and messaging approaches. An aim of this tool was for it to become an integration resource and model applied across the communication disciplines within Northlich, where employees can observe how consumers use, interact and engage with media, test media hypotheses, and garner real-time feedback from consumers.
Premier Lease & Loan Services
Premier Lease & Loan Services is the leading provider of commercial insurance for equipment leases and finance companies. Premier intends to develop a focused “purpose-driven brand” to differentiate itself in the market and to give stronger reasons for customers to be associated with it. The goal of this Capstone project was to define and build an appropriate framework to build Premier as a Purpose-Driven Brand. The consultant defined the purpose of Premier and provided an implementation plan to ingrain it within Premier’s culture, and promote Premier as a purpose-driven brand to its customers and prospects.
RGI
RGI, Inc., is a Cincinnati-based integrated marketing and branding agency committed to being an expert in marketing strategy. One of the expressions of this commitment was the Capstone project, involveing the development of comprehensive research to generate knowledge and inspire strategic thinking. With “prepared food in the grocery store” as the topic to be researched, the consultant conducted secondary research followed by extensive primary research. In the exploratory qualitative phase, shop-alongs and in-depth interviews uncovered consumer insights that later were quantified through a web-based survey. All the learning gathered were consolidated and synthesized to be applied to a project with RGI’s clients.
Signage Foundation
The Signage Foundation (SFI) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to fulfilling the educational, research and philanthropic purposes of on-premise signage. SFI in collaboration with UC’s CoB and DAAP, is organizing the 2009 National Signage Research and Education Conference (NSREC) in October, to be held in Cincinnati, Ohio, the first in the series of many initiatives to bring together sign makers, businesses, end users, the public and local governing bodies. The focus of the project was two-fold – first, develop an overall communications strategy for SFI to target identified constituencies and donor groups; second, develop the marketing plan and design of marketing collateral for the conference. The collateral included handouts for the conference, a prototype for future conferences, targeted marketing communication initiatives, design for the SFI Corporate Booth and layout for the SFI and NSREC websites.
Sun Chemical
Sun Chemical, a member of the DIC group, is the world’s largest producer of printing inks and pigments. Sun Chemical Performance Pigments, headquartered in Cincinnati, asked the consultant to examine coloration in the construction segment. The work included market research, distribution channel assessment and other related business analyses. The goal of the analysis was a deep and rich understanding of all aspects of the market, segments and competitors, yielding a marketing plan for Sun Pigments covering how to enter this market.
The Court Yard
The Court Yard Sportsplex is a racquet club and fitness center located in Westchester, Ohio. Though the club is hustling and bustling most of the time, management was looking to increase membership and satisfaction levels. The Capstone project determined the critical factors necessary to raise awareness among prospective members, increase membership and increase satisfaction of current membership.
The Green Depot
For 25+ years Brian Garry has practiced green building through Green City EcoStruction, the only green building company in the Midwest listed in the National Green Pages. In 2008, Brian invested in a Gateway Quarter storefront (Over the Rhine) and plans to use the space to open the Green Depot, a retail outlet for state-of-the-art green technologies and energy products. As the property is being renovated, Brian enlisted the help of the MS-Marketing Program to increase his understanding of Cincinnati contractors, architects and nonprofit organization needs in green energy and building material products.
UC College-Conservatory of Music (CCM)
The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), the largest single source of performing arts events in Ohio, is looking toward a future re-envisioning of its brand. In order to begin this pursuit, it is imperative that the current CCM audience is thoroughly understood. CCM needed a comprehensive research study, since no recent data collection or analysis had been performed among its current audience. With a better understanding of its audience, CCM hopes to better target its unique segments and build overall loyalty to the CCM brand.
UC Office of Admissions
Now that the University of Cincinnati is competing in the Big East for athletics, UC is ready to compete outside of the tri-state region for student applications. To do so, the UC Office of Admissions needed market research and marketing strategies to increase out-of-state enrollment of first-year students. The purpose of this marketing initiative was to provide insight into why current out-of-state students have chosen the University of Cincinnati, recommend marketing strategies to attract more out-of state first-year students, and target new geo-demographic areas for future marketing efforts.
UC Professional Practice Division
UC Professional Practice Division and Cooperative Education (co-op) Program (UCPP) is designed to provide qualified students the most comprehensive professional preparation available. Today, the program is at a pivotal point. As the world navigates a challenging economy, the Professional Practice Division had too many students and not enough positions to fill. The business issue was strategic marketing development within challenging economic times, and positioning the co-op program with long-term employers. The Capstone consultant focused on the following challenges: (1) identifying with whom to communicate; (2) determining how to communicate; and (3) building ongoing relationships.
Voice of Your Customer
Located in Walnut Hills, the Voice of Your Customer was founded as a secret-shopping company by Crystal L. Kendrick. The firm grew from $3,000 revenues in 2006 to over $400,000 in 2007 when it expanded to a full-service marketing consulting firm. Surpassing local, regional and national averages in leading economic indicators for emerging firms, this marketing consulting firm proposed a Capstone project which focused on: (1) providing initial brand image assessment to serve as the foundation for formulating desired brand position; (2) applying Search Engine Optimization for website content development; and (3) recommending a long-term strategy to track and increase the effectiveness of the firm’s professional-social networking websites.