Custom Auto Body

Out-of-home advertising that feels like a cool leaning-out-the-window drive.

Custom Auto Body has been Innis Maggiore’s longest-tenured client — since 1979, when Dick Maggiore convinced founder Ron Tietze to hire the agency instead of handling advertising on his own. Randy Tietze, current president of Custom Auto Body, said his father soon saw the value of that decision.

In 1987, the agency convinced the client to invest that entire year’s advertising budget in one billboard campaign, which featured an inflatable shaped like the front of a car, which would deflate to resemble a crash, and then be re-inflated every 30 seconds. That single, revolutionary three-dimensional billboard, one of the first ever designed, became so notable that the agency and Custom Auto Body broke mainstream news.

Since then, Innis Maggiore has been crafting new ideas for memorable OOH advertising that has kept people talking about Custom Auto for decades. We’ve saved cars from monsters resembling Godzilla and King Kong; shown improbable mishaps like a car plunged through the peak of a house; made heroes out of Custom Auto Body employees like the “Detailing Diva” and “Top Job” Jimmy; helped “un-bender your fender” and “un-ding your drive;” finished giant puzzles; and sent “The Mobilizers” to save the day.

The collision repair experts at Custom Auto have a brand position that promises a “like-new” factory-fresh result. One thing about out-of-home advertising — and billboard advertising in particular — is its larger-than-life visibility. If a prospective Custom Auto customer is stuck at a stop light that seems to last forever, why not brighten their day by putting something fun and engaging within their view? That’s why Innis Maggiore media experts locate and procure the right out-of-home vehicles to promote where to take your vehicles if the unexpected occurs.

A recent example of fresh and friendly OOH work by Innis Maggiore was our “Accidents are Ruff!” campaign for Custom Auto Body. We featured spokespups Nelson, Dash, and Mario on area billboards as they enjoyed a refreshing ride in the breeze with their heads sticking out car windows as doggos are prone to do.

Accidents happen. Your car suffers. But not for long! Custom Auto Body artfully repairs and restores your car to its “like new” state again. After Custom Auto performed its magic, Nelson got back on the road again, Dash got back in the fast lane, and Mario got back in the driver's seat.

Though this billboard campaign was as doggone fun as it gets, the strategy was a serious one: to promote Custom Auto Body services in a lighthearted way during a period of time after all everyone had been through during COVID, as well as a way to calm people who’ve been through the “ruff” experience of a collision. Innis Maggiore complemented the out-of-home core of the campaign with social media — which promoted both Custom Auto services and safe driving — together with digital advertising within the geographic region of the client AND its competition.

Custom Auto Body has been in business for 65 years, yet three generations of the Tietze family have never considered working with another agency because Innis Maggiore has provided new and engaging marketing ideas for decades — which is no accident.

 

ReliaRide Medical Transportation

Strong positioning yields strong branding when implemented with discipline and care.

The leaders at Scenic View Transportation showed an unusual degree of candor. They came to us acknowledging that their name was a hindrance. Coming across more like a nice tour through Amish Country rather than a medical transportation provider, the client knew it was time to make a change.

A family-oriented nonprofit, Scenic View Transportation started with the goal to be the best, most reliable, most professional, and friendliest ambulette service provider in Ohio (and perhaps beyond). The company established an excellent reputation by carefully screening its drivers and office staff, insisting that customers get the best service.

The company provides what’s called non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) to hospitals, rehab and skilled nursing facilities, outpatient surgery, local clinics, doctors’ offices, physical therapy, sleep studies, pharmacy trips, legal consultations, eye exams, and X-rays.

The company experienced amazing growth, even despite the name handicap and almost no marketing. Leadership decided to accelerate growth by beginning a marketing program and expanding geographically.

Scenic View Transportation enlisted America’s #1 Positioning Ad Agency Innis Maggiore for a complete rebranding to eliminate name confusion. We recommended a leadership position and coined the new name ReliaRide™ Medical Transportation. Employing a catchy alliteration with the double Rs served to make the name more memorable. It’s simple word math: Reliable + Ride = ReliaRide.

Next, we designed a new logo featuring a stylized heart shape formed with a dotted line to represent a blessed path from point A to point B and back again.

As a transportation company, the single most significant form of marketing was new vehicle graphics. A top category of out-of-home advertising, vehicle graphics move throughout a client’s business region to bring visibility and tangibility to its brand to customers and prospects alike. Innis Maggiore designed and oversaw installation of graphics for ReliaRide’s entire fleet of cars, minivans, and large vans equipped with wheelchair storage.

The agency also created everything from an identity package and TV spot, to a video, collateral, direct marketing, and displays.

A new website was to act as a lead source, unlike the then-existing website that was virtually invisible to Google due to bad and insufficient SEO. We created a bright and cheerful experience along with the comforting theme, “You’re riding with friends.”

Before any of the marketing was deployed to the public, an internal launch took place to impress internal audiences and avoid grumbling. A gathering brought all employees together to reveal the new brand and distribute swag such as shirts and hats — and everyone was thrilled with the rebranding.

Innis Maggiore public relations experts communicated the new identity to prospective customers, riders, community partners, and media. The company’s owner was interviewed on leading radio stations in two area markets; several newspapers published feature articles; and the region’s major business news publication, Crain’s Cleveland Business, profiled the company and the rebranding. To date, Innis Maggiore’s PR efforts showed a Critical Mention publicity value of nearly $250,000 and a PR Newswire potential audience of 154.3 million. Driver applicants grew by four times, and ride requests increased 22%.

In addition, the agency created a postcard to explain the name change and its rationale to riders, which also featured a promotional overlay to encourage them to write Google Reviews. Each participant gained a sweepstakes entry for the chance to win a gift card. In the three-month effort, 208 riders wrote a review — all but one gave a 5-star review!

 

Aultman Health System

Doors to a whole new world.

On January 17, 1892, Aultman Hospital, Stark County’s first hospital, opened its doors. With just 40 rooms and the facilities to accommodate 56 patients, the Aultman legacy of providing patient-focused care to members of the community began.

Today, Aultman leads the community to improved health across seven counties with 300 locations, five hospitals, four emergency departments, four urgent care centers, 1,032 private rooms, 885 physicians in more than 40 different medical specialties, 7,300 team members, 1000 volunteers, and 300 Women’s Board Members.

Aultman Health System benefits communities with a full spectrum of interrelated services in a unique, vertically integrated network comprised of hospitals and healthcare providers, health insurances, a college, and a charitable foundation (all of which — and more — are Innis Maggiore clients).

Over 35 years ago, the organization created its own health insurance plans under the brand name AultCare to provide quality healthcare at an affordable cost. Then a seismic change occurred. After decades as the exclusive insurance provider accepted at Aultman, its market reached a tipping point, necessitating a shift from exclusive vertical integration to inclusive vertical integration to give access to all.

As America’s No. 1 Positioning Ad Agency and Aultman’s agency of record since 1996, Innis Maggiore was up for the challenge. An unprecedented situation called for an unprecedented breadth of strategic collaboration, involving stakeholders from a myriad of responsibilities working together.

The agency recommended a strategy that leveraged Aultman’s regional leadership to now become the area’s #1 in healthcare access, accepting more insurances than ever (AultCare plus top providers Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana, Medical Mutual, PrimeTime Health Plan, and United Healthcare).

Strategy in hand, the next step was to dramatize the idea. A collaborative effort between Innis Maggiore account management, creative, media, web, and digital departments brought the strategy to life. The agency’s creative team developed numerous approaches for expressing the idea.

The winner was an overarching theme and graphic symbolizing access PLUS leadership, along with a message that Aultman’s new “open doors policy” means more consumer choice. We invited people to “COME ON IN!” to get the best in care and more insurance plans. A friendly illustration style featuring a diverse range of patients, together with a bright and bold color palette, embodied patient access in a highly accessible visual style and messaging tone.

The agency surrounded the customer reaching a mass audience with means such as broadcast, digital, and social; an open letter announcement to the community by Aultman President/CEO and endorsed by Board Officers; breaking the campaign with a newspaper wrap outside and a double-truck inside the same Sunday edition; augmented with high-impact, full-page newspaper ads and lifestyle magazine placements; as well as direct marketing to key targets — with everything leading to a dedicated landing page (AultmanOpenDoor.com). However, many of the most notable and imaginative elements stood as out-of-home advertising at its best.

Innis Maggiore created and deployed 3D billboards along with many large format signage examples like a wall in the area’s largest shopping mall, Aultman campus graphics, die-cut full-sized character standees in Aultman facilities, a digital sign at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, feather flags, elevator door graphics, offsite banners, large signs for provider offices, and more. What was most interesting about this approach was that the agency and Aultman treated its hospitals and other spaces in a way one would typically associate with retail.

In addition, environmental and nontraditional elements included a door art installation in conjunction with local cultural organization ArtsinStark, pavement graphics, take-one brochures in all Aultman facilities and the area’s biggest shopping mall, letterhead, envelopes, business cards, water bottles, stress balls, coloring pages, t-shirts for Facebook contest giveaways, and coffee sleeves with codes to win a free drink.

While plenty of doors were opened for new patients throughout the Aultman Health System, the campaign is special to us because it featured the most — and the most varied — OOH advertising components of any campaign Innis Maggiore has ever done!

 

SARTA (Stark Area Regional Transit Authority)

A yearlong ride celebrates a big anniversary.

Saying thanks can make all the difference. Since 2012, Innis Maggiore has conducted many campaigns and projects for the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority (SARTA) to thank riders, drivers, corporations, and organizations.

2023 was SARTA’s 25th anniversary, a milestone we celebrated together throughout the year with four quarters packed with campaigns and events to thank everyone involved and increase community awareness. We used the overarching theme of “Happy SARTAversary” to put our own spin on 25 years of mass transit for Stark County.

As you might imagine, the most important part of the campaign was out-of-home advertising associated with public transportation. We designed a fun and colorful bus wrap that made SARTA’s mass transit look like party buses celebrating its SARTAversary. We also created interior bus signage and station posters paying tribute to those responsible for SARTA’s 25 years of success (see below for each quarter’s focus).

The first quarter concentrated on employees (whom we dubbed Accounting Whizzes, Dispatch Icons, HR Champs, Customer Service Wonders, IT Heroes, Customer Relations Commanders, Service Marvels, Mechanics Masters, and Operations Aces), collectively called the SARTA All-Stars. Groups were featured in many digital marketing avenues such as social media, videos/spots, streaming audio, and print. Some focused on a select group of employees who exemplified a SARTA spirit to help riders above and beyond their job description.

In the second quarter, we spotlighted community partners, companies, and organizations devoted to economic development, higher education, jobs, healthcare, and housing. They were individually featured in the digital and traditional media mentioned above, with a representative from each talking about how SARTA impacts their ability to create a positive impact.

The third quarter was devoted exclusively to riders, letting them tell their own stories in their own words — many whom could not otherwise get to their workplaces, schools, doctor’s appointments, or stores without SARTA’s valuable service.

As SARTA’s agency of record, Innis Maggiore was proud to record and deploy heartwarming proof of the value SARTA brings to the community through video, audio, and written storytelling.

We then continued our anniversary collaboration with the client to bring a Happy SARTAversary to the general public through a series of in-person events (including a decorated trolley for Halloween and holiday lights) together with a comprehensive campaign comprised of both a sweepstakes and a contest promoted on social media and audio, leading to dedicated landing pages to enter the sweeps and contest.

This “SARTA two-five” campaign touched virtually every aspect of the agency, including strategy, creative concepting, design/layout, social posting, promotion and contest management, and community relations management.

The campaign won a first-place award at the national Adwheel Awards Competition (SARTA’s third year in a row). We helped the client monitor metrics such as social media engagement, click rates, and landing page entries, all of which experienced healthy enhancements.

Highlights included:

• A paid ad click-through rate of 1.63% (compared to the industry standard of 0.9%)
• Using boosted ads to increase clicks and reach 157,098 more people during the rider quarter
• Strong digital ad and Facebook results for “SARTA Spooktacular” and “Holly Trolley”
• And a 2.65% CTR for “Holiday Lights Night-on-the-Town”