Advertising

It’s not just about the 30-second TV commercial, the half-page magazine ad and the 48-sheet billboard anymore. It’s about whatever we can do to make our clients successful. It might be a web video, a press conference, an online brochure. “It” will always be an inspired idea, delivered in an equally inspirational way.

What we really do is solve problems. And everyone who works here understands that the solution may well lie in traditional media advertising or – who knows? – on a laptop, or a cell phone, or the luggage rack at the airport greeting trade show attendees we want to engage. These are the bricks for today’s brand-building.

Social media specialists? We have them. Web designers? Yep. Strategic planners? About 40 feet from the web designers. Video editors? Them, too. They all “do advertising.” And because they can all get together in the same room and hammer away at a project, they all speak the same language. Yours.

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Interactive

Remember when website development was considered something akin to interplanetary space travel? Nah, we don’t either. It’s such a way of life now that even candidates applying for entry-level jobs here say without fail, “Hey, check out my website.” So we say to you in kind, “Hey, check out our website work.” It runs the gamut:

• Social Media and New Media Strategy and Design
• Content Planning and Information Architecture
• Interface Design (GUI)
• Rich Media Application Design
• Website Design and Development
• Mobile Application and Web Design
• Webcast and Podcast Production
• Web Video Creation and Editing (Including HD)
• Streaming and Optimization
• Animation – 3D, Flash
• Search Engine Optimization
• Digital Promotion Strategy and Design (Banners, Microsites, etc.)

We’ve found what makes our approach especially valuable to clients is the way we in fact “interact” with them. We take the time to understand their products, business goals and users, thoroughly. Then we attack their projects with every discipline imaginable – both open source and enterprise technologies and, importantly, our other in-house capabilities, such as HD video editing or public relations (now available in the social space). Or by closely integrating with our traditional advertising efforts on a new product launch, let’s say.

Our digital team includes project managers, programmers and designers who collectively take work through information architecture, content planning, user experience design, interface design and development. We carefully match technologies with business needs and never lose sight of the ultimate goal: create a successful user experience. That’s why you use us, right?

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Public Relations

This isn’t a public relations team stuck in an ad agency’s body; it’s a group of skilled specialists with more than 90 collective years providing strategic, public relations counsel – and more:

• Media Relations
• Crisis Communications
• Media Training
• Event Planning
• Political Campaigns
• Surveys/Trends
• Internal Communications

The result? They’ve helped increase client sales, launch products, win political campaigns and reverse negative perceptions of entire industries. They’ve routinely worked with Good Morning America, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and many other major media outlets on our clients’ behalf.

Many of our PR clients utilize other areas within Hart to maximize their programs’ effectiveness. Many of our advertising clients utilize our PR capabilities to maximize their programs’ effectiveness. You get the picture. We have exclusively public relations clients, too. (A fact the PR folks remind the ad guys of regularly.)

Social media and new media aren’t new around here, either. We’ve found that tapping into consumer-generated media – coordinated with mass media outreach – generates powerful brand messaging. It’s called “public” relations for a reason. And how can you relate to your public if you don’t know what they’re saying about you?

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Video

You find many similar things within the walls of every ad agency. People with those black rectangular-framed glasses. Leftover bagels in the kitchen (why is it always half a cinnamon raisin?). The love-it-or-hate-it smell of that spray-adhesive stuff.

What you don’t normally find, especially at an agency our size, is a full-fledged HD video production department with all the techy toys. And people who know how to use them. Radio and TV commercials as well as every type of video all come to life here. We can shoot them and produce them. In a timely and cost-efficient manner. Yes, all of this and more:

Way back in 1988, Hart became the first Northwest Ohio agency to offer complete, in-house, three-dimensional computer animation services. In fact, we’ve been around so long we actually remember when it was called a “Paintbox.” We now have whammy-jammy devices like two seats of Maya Complete along with all of the latest design and audio sweetening software.

Translation: you get much the same kind of editorial services the independent production houses offer in our house. And if there’s something we can’t do as well as someone else, we’ll recommend someone else. The goal is to find the perfect place for concept, budget and schedule to all live happily ever after.

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View the reel

Media

“Media” now exists in more places than ever. On your computer, of course. Everywhere on your computer, including e-mails. On your cell phone, too. Heck, the cell phone itself can even be part of a media buy. An ingenious agency (and client) distributed free Samsung phones to New York middle-school students, sent them education-based texts and rewarded them with free minutes for achieving academic goals.

Now you may have noticed that Hart is in Maumee, not Manhattan, but we understand that media planning and buying is a complex art/science that requires analytical thinking, firm negotiating skills and, above all, flexibility. We’ve invested fiscally – and philosophically – in our media department to assess and redirect based on the ever-changing dynamics of the world we e-xist in.

The media department plays a critical role in client strategy, even before the media planning phase begins, by providing marketing insights based on national and local research. We rely heavily on advanced research tools to understand how consumer behavior relates to media consumption.

From there, we develop media strategies and, ultimately, plans are executed by Hart’s senior buyers, who analyze consumer media consumption through our state-of-the-art (translation: really cool) software tool, Strata. It provides the best market intelligence to enhance strategic negotiating skills with media partners across the country. So clients not only receive a media plan that’s customized but, we think, far more sophisticated than they’re accustomed to.

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