New Lexus Effort Does Everything Right

We here at The Sutter Group love automobiles just about as much as we love marketing. That’s why when we saw Lexus’ recent television ad, we knew we had to write about it. It’s effective advertising on so many levels.

First, it does what every great ad should do. It focuses in on ONE main point of distinction of the new Lexus ES - its 88 vibration reducing features, including an “active-control engine mount” which makes it nearly impossible to sense any vibration or rough ride (a characteristic that most luxury car buyers will cherish). While many car ads barrage consumers with a laundry list of product features and benefits, this ad does an excellent job of sticking to one and using creativity to dramatize it. In the ad, which you can see HERE, professional cardstacker Bryan Berg builds a virtual cityscape on top of the ES.

But Lexus didn’t stop there. They went viral with the campaign by filming a behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of the video, which is now making its way across the internet through channels like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as well as on the Lexus ES Website. Pretty soon, the entire world will know how the active engine mount technology makes the ES silky smooth to drive. Here’s the behind the scenes vid from YouTube.

The only question now, as posed by a friend of ours, is how does one become a professional card stacker? Lots of practice, I suppose.

by Garret Ohm

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The Sutter Group Adds Three Strategic Hires To Support Growing Client Base

The Sutter Group, a full-service marketing communications agency offering advertising, interactive and marketing solutions, today announced the addition of three new team members to support its recent growth. The company has appointed Keith Bloom as vice president, creative strategy, Garret Ohm as marketing director and Aaron Waldon as senior web developer. The new hires will allow The Sutter Group to better serve its clients and assist with the growth and development of the company.

“We have been fortunate to have experienced a steady growth even in difficult economic times and these new team members will help us facilitate and continue that growth while delivering the high-quality creative product our clients have come to expect,” commented Karen Sutter, founder and president of The Sutter Group. “We are pleased to welcome such talented and seasoned professionals to The Sutter Group and look forward to the value and individual skill sets they bring as we continue to thrive.”

The following are summaries of The Sutter Group’s newest additions:

Keith Bloom, Vice President, Creative Strategy and Development
Keith Bloom joins The Sutter Group as vice president, creative strategy and development after having worked in the industry for nearly 20 years. In addition to owning and managing his own award-winning interactive design and advertising agency, he was also vice president of advertising for the Inc. 500 #1 Fastest Growing Company in 2004, InPhonic. Bloom has been cited with multiple national and regional awards and citations of excellence for interactive, broadcast, print, and direct mail.  Mr. Bloom has worked for brands such as Discovery Communications, American Woodmark, Stanley Martin, The Mills Corporation, Clark Construction and Carr America and NFIB. Bloom is an alumni of American University.

Garret Ohm, Marketing Director
Garret Ohm joins The Sutter Group as marketing director, where he will direct the marketing initiatives of the firm and its clients as well as work to establish new, mutually beneficial relationships between the firm and prospective clients. Prior to joining The Sutter Group, Ohm served as marketing director for Orange Element, a design and communications firm in Baltimore. Over his 7 years in marketing, he has worked with clients including Atlantic Golf/The Brick Companies, Peace Corps, Maryland Film Festival, Rams Head Taverns, True Lemon/Grand Brands, The Maryland Association of Realtors, W.R. Grace and Rt. 11 Potato Chips. Ohm currently serves on the board of directors for the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance and the Advertising Association of Baltimore.

Aaron Waldon, Senior Web Developer
Aaron Waldon comes to The Sutter Group as the firm’s senior Web developer. Prior to joining The Sutter Group, Waldon was a Web developer for NumbersUSA, where he focused on redevelopment of targeted sections within the company’s site. Waldon’s main role will be to supervise the implementation of the firm’s Web and interactive strategies on behalf of its growing list of corporate and government clients. Waldon is a graduate of Brigham Young University in Hawaii with a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business Management.

About The Sutter Group
The Sutter Group is a 21 year-old full-service marketing communications agency headquartered between Baltimore and Washington, DC in Lanham, Maryland with a diversified client base in the automotive, consumer, government, technology, national association and real estate and development markets The firm blends large-agency technology bandwidth and boutique studio design talent to produce creative communications solutions that deliver proven results.  The Sutter Group offers all elements of marketing communications services including: branding and marketing strategy, advertising, corporate identity, e-learning, direct marketing, special events, viral marketing, graphic design and Website and interactive design. The firm is a WBENC certified Women’s Business Enterprise, a certified Maryland minority business enterprise and is on several AIMS GSA schedules.

Contact: John Sutter, Director of Business Operations, 301/459-5445

by Garret Ohm

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Joustmas

Everyone that has ever played the arcade classic Joust should be familiar with this game! Nostalgic fools that we are, we tried to keep this game as close to the original as possible while giving it a facelift to fit with the holiday theme. We hand illustrated each frame of animation, swapping out reindeer for the flying ostriches and elves for the knights in the original game. We also thought it would be fun to swap the hatching eggs in the original with exploding presents. We traded the lava pits in the classic with a snowy winter wonderland, too. We even recorded our own original taunts and sped them up (a la The Chipmunks) to give them an elvish sound.

This year, we wanted to encourage some friendly competition out there, so we added a scoreboard to the game, using PHP and MySQL to link to a database on our server. Just enter your initials at the beginning of the game, and see if you can make it to the top. Go ahead, beat me if you can!

Click here to play it yourself. Bring it!

by Buzz Napper

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Retailer Learning Kit 2

A year ago, we redefined our client’s Retailer Learning Kit, moving it away from the traditional PowerPoint training and into the exciting world of interactive training. The engine we developed is Flash-based, and XML-driven, allowing incredible flexibility in its reusability and editability, both of which we took full advantage of with the latest Learning Kit.

This year, we modified the color scheme of the interface to give it a fresh look while keeping the same overall look and feel we established with the previous version. We then took it a step farther by programming the on-screen text and images to be precisely timed to the audio narration. The resulting presentation combined text, images, video and narration into an incredibly engaging learning experience that was presented to individual dealerships by marketing managers for each region. We even produced a DVD so that larger groups could view the presentation without having to crowd around a single computer screen.

by Buzz Napper

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Land Rover E-Learning

For years now, we’ve been doing print and CD-based training courses for Land Rover University. When they asked us to work on their U.S. E-learning modules, we naturally saw it as a next stage of evolution in our capabilities towards our long-time client. Working closely with them, we first took the Lectora files from their existing U.K.-based training modules and edited the content to correctly reflect the U.S. products and market. We then created new templates for the user interface that more closely matched existing courses already in their LMS database. We also created dozens of Flash-based, interactive demos in order to stimulate the user’s interest and increase memory retention, as well as interactive quizzes to test their knowledge. These courses should be ready for use nationwide in the next month or so, and we’ve already been asked to do several more.

by Buzz Napper

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