SUSAN STALLINGS

A multiple award-winning campaign that started with a simple premise…don't tell people what they can DO here, tell them how they will FEEL here.

We were challenged with leveraging the beauty of the popular Pure Michigan brand into the business side of Michigan. This campaign embraces the notion that business can be beautiful, too. The rich colors and clean design created a cohesive look and feel throughout all of the campaign elements and helped Michigan stand out among the sea of sameness in the B2B world.

This campaign showcases the innovators and game-changers that live, create and do business here in Michigan. It’s an invitation and call-to-action for like-minded individuals to consider Michigan as a viable choice for their business.

This campaign was designed to target S.T.E.A.M. students at specific colleges located in Michigan’s competitor cities.

While Michigan has been steadily gaining ground, the vast majority of students take the easy route and flock to jobs in the trendier cities. But Michigan has a lot to offer young talent in terms of careers, quality of life, low cost of living and, most of all, opportunities to make a difference.

So how do we compete with the cliché cities? Places like Austin, NYC, Seattle, Boston and Chicago. How do we convince skeptical young people who either don’t know us, or don’t like us, to take a chance and take a job in Michigan?

We do it by embracing the truth. By acknowledging their negative perceptions, then smashing them to pieces. We talk to these students in the language they understand and win them over with facts, not platitudes. We show them that Michigan has the guts to go toe-to-toe with the big cities and come out, if not on top, then pretty darn close.

Economic development can succeed or fail based on the recommendations of Site Selectors. And they are bombarded with materials every day. So how do you stand out among everyone else? We created a two-part direct mail program to showcase the best qualities of some of our main cities. The teaser boxes would arrive first and carry a bold message and complementary gifts to pique their interest. A few months later, a moving box would arrive containing more information as to why companies should move their business. The unique gifts inside were thoughtfully selected to be useful and original. This original approach to a direct mail program proved to be very successful and popular with the Site Selectors.

The Room Place was suffering from a crowded landscape of furniture stores in Chicago.

This campaign bucked the trend of “Sale/Sale/Sale” and leaned into the emotional role that furniture plays in making a house feel like a home. This perspective helped them stand out amongst the shouting of their competitors.

Refloor is America’s fastest-growing flooring company. They started local and in a span of two years, they have expanded into six other states. Their success is based on the quality of their product and a top customer satisfaction rating.

Broadcast television is a key component for Refloor, generating the most leads and highest ROI.

The fast-food industry has been phoning it in for decades and consumers have gotten used to settling for less.

Savvy Sliders wanted to tackle this issue head on because they believe that consumers deserve more – more flavor, more quality, more options.

At Savvy Sliders, there’s just more to love.

Where is it written that you have to suffer to be a camper? What rule says you have to abandon civilization, go days without showering and share your bathroom with the bears? All in the name of having a good time.

At KOA, camping is more about getting away from it all than giving it all up. It’s about escaping the pressures of everyday life, not the comforts. That’s why KOA offers things like clean restrooms and hot showers, knowledgeable service, family-friendly activities, and yes, even Wi-Fi.

KOA takes care of the details so campers can take care of more important things like relaxing, roasting marshmallows and making memories Behind the Yellow Sign.

Priority Health came in as a house of different brands so we gave them a single brand and showed people why they’re a healthier approach to health care.

We found 996,000 reasons why Priority Heath works so hard to offer Michigan the best health insurance possible. Real people. Real stories. Real Priority Health members.

With the launch of the "Be Brilliant" campaign, Ameriprise moved from being a financial follower to a leader in the benefits of personal planning.

The most important medical question is the one you should have asked.

Mitsubishi Motors had a consideration problem – you had to look back to the early 90s to find them as a brand that consumers put on their list of buying options. Honda, Toyota and Hyundai took over and rendered them nearly obsolete.

The “Thunderstruck” campaign was a re-introduction for the brand to the current market. Bold and unapologetic, the campaign leaned into a beloved song and showcased the styling and features of the vehicle.

The beauty of this campaign was the ability to leverage it from the Tier 1 level all the way down to the Tier 3 dealer level – this “one voice” consistency contributed to an increase of over 300% in sales over the previous year.

Feldman puts more Chevys on Michigan roads than anyone. They took that singular brand and built on it – now with 18 locations and multiple brands in under five years.

Their goal was to fight local and look national – they wanted their spots to elevate the expectations of what a regional car dealer represents.

In a world of splash parks and augmented reality, there is still a place where the impact is real and you get to be part of the story.

Real Ketones decided to expand their brand from just supplements into the packaged food arena. They believed keto followers were tired of dry, tasteless keto bars and set out to develop a richer, more satisfying option. As such, they wanted the packaging to visually represent the consumer experience.

Logo design is quite possibly the purest form of graphic design. You have so little real estate in which to convey so much. Though a logo seems to be such a small part of branding, it is still the centerpiece as it is often one of the first things that people will identify with a brand.

It remains one of my favorite things to do and it’s amazing when a logo like the Pure Michigan logo gets adopted on a wide scale. I’m still humbled and flattered every day when I see it on license plates, state signs and even at the grocery store.