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Only one radio campaign won a 2017 Platinum MarCom Award. Ours.

The humorous five-spot series we created for Ray’s Trash in Indianapolis took one of the top prizes in the international competition, which receives about 6,000 entries annually.

“Ray’s asked us to produce a radio spot to run during the Indianapolis Indians radio broadcasts this past summer,” said MadAveGroup CCO Scott Greggory. “We considered the five-month season and the four-spot-per-game frequency, and then suggested creating five spots instead. We knew that hearing the same spot over and over could lead to listener burnout, which would result in frustration with the brand. A greater variety of spots would prevent that problem.”

Platinum Award - Ray’s Trash Radio Campaign
Writer: Scott Greggory
Voices: Amy Scott and Scott Greggory
Recording Engineer: Chris Zaharias

BusinessVoice, our Caller Experience Agency, won two Gold MarCom Awards and an Honorable Mention, all for On Hold Marketing we created.

Gold Award - SYSTEMseven On Hold Marketing
Writers: Shaun Turner and Scott Greggory
Voices: Amy Scott and Scott Greggory
Recording Engineer: Chris Zaharias

Gold Award - International Translating Company On Hold Marketing
Writer: Scott Greggory
Voices: Amy Scott and Scott Greggory
Recording Engineer: Don Binkley

Honorable Mention - Notre Dame Academy On Hold Marketing

Writer: Andrea Poteet
Voices: Amy Jeffries
Recording Engineer: Don Binkley

If you want to improve the impression that your company leaves on callers, you may want to consider this: BusinessVoice, our Caller Experience Marketing agency, won the highest honor in the On Hold Marketing industry for the second time in three years at the 2017 MARCE Awards.

The MARCEs are presented each year to acknowledge marketing and creative excellence in On Hold Marketing entries from around the world.

“The Girls at Notre Dame” earned two awards: Best Branding and Best of Show. We crafted the production for our client Notre Dame Academy, a Catholic girls school in our hometown of Toledo, Ohio.

“We're always thinking about how to elevate the caller experience,” said Chief Creative Officer Scott Greggory. “The Notre Dame production is a great example of introducing first-person stories and sincere emotion to paint a vivid picture in callers' minds.”

Andrea Poteet wrote the voiceover copy, Don Binkley was the recording engineer, and Amy Jeffries provided the voiceover. Hanson Inc. provided the students' voiceovers.

The MARCE Awards judges shared many nice comments about the piece, including these:

“Great concept. The testimonial / word-of-mouth feel is strong and believable. And the spectrum of information shared is tremendous.”

“The music bed was current, the VO delivery was very solid, and the [stories] left a great impression. Well done, guys.”

BusinessVoice has earned 14 MARCE Awards. That's more than any other On Hold Marketing provider in the world. The competition began in 2005.

Our branding and design team, d2i, earned a Silver award at the 2017 ADDY Awards ceremony.

Designers Terry Lesniewicz and Greg Stawicki teamed up to create a winning poster series for The Mad Ave Collective (above left).

“The Collective’s logo inspired the posters,” said Stawicki. “We used elements from the logo to create strong, simple graphic messages that would engage viewers.”

“We took a contemporary minimalist approach with this project; very simple, very little copy,” said Lesniewicz. “It’s an attitude, and the response so far has been ‘WOW!’ especially from a lot of younger people who have responded to the work. It was fun to be the first agency in this area to adopt this style.”

Lesniewicz is a nationally known designer who’s been elevating brands for more than five decades. His work has been featured in magazines, award shows, even a museum, and has been seen by countless millions of people.

The d2i crew also designed the collateral for the ADDY Awards, including the call-for-entries poster, invitation and winners' booklet (above right).

BusinessVoice, our caller experience agency, received a Bronze ADDY for a humorous On Hold Marketing production they created for Arrowwood Lodge in Baxter, Minnesota.

BusinessVoice has won more awards for its work than any other OHM provider in the industry. The creative team specializes in developing Humor On Hold™. Listen to their winning entry in the video below. 

In the world of marketing and advertising, there aren't many agencies that have served a client for a quarter of a century or more.

But we're a bit different. Ten of our clients have been with us for 25 years or longer.

Yes, TEN.

And they represent a wide variety of industries, from automotive sales, HVAC, building materials and contractors, to non-profits, healthcare, senior care and rehabilitation.

So, to thank our longest-term clients, we went on a little tour. We visited each company to present the management with a personalized, locally made, hand-blown glass memento like the one on the right.

The inscription acknowledges “our 25-year relationship and [our client's] dedication to delivering exceptional customer experiences.”

What a privilege to have the loyalty and trust of so many people. We never take our responsibilities to them or any of our clients lightly. And we are truly thankful for their support throughout these many years.

By the way, the numbers are even nicer for our 20-year clients: We've been serving 83 businesses for two decades or longer.

We're looking forward to giving out many more of these beautiful thank you gifts in the coming years.

On November 10, 2016, MadAveGroup CEO Jerry Brown was inducted into the Entrepreneurial and Business Excellence Hall of Fame.

The hall honors those who have successfully grown their ideas and businesses in northwest Ohio and/or southeast Michigan.

Since founding his first marketing agency in 1989, Brown has led the development of a family of specialized marketing agencies, all of which fall under the MadAveGroup umbrella.

“Making money is certainly important for any business,“ Brown said, “but what I really love is building something of value, whether it’s our agency and all the different things we can do, or helping our clients grow their businesses. That’s the challenge. That’s the thrill.”

The MadAveGroup leadership team was in the audience to watch the award presentation, including VP of Account Management and Fulfillment Valerie Likens. “Jerry is passionate about his work,” she said “and he’s able to communicate that passion and pass it along to his team.”

“There are tremendous challenges that come with starting and growing a business, AND trying to maintain a culture that’s both fun and focused,” said Scott Greggory, MadAveGroup’s Chief Creative Officer. “Jerry has done both wonderfully well, and managed to keep a great enthusiasm for life, for people and for the work we do here. He’s a very special guy, and completely deserving of this award.”

Watch Jerry's acceptance speech in the video above. 

The MadAveGroup creative team took away a nice haul from this year’s MarCom Awards: four awards total, including two platinum trophies and a gold. Take a look at the work and a few details below.

Platinum Award - SensoryMax Website
Designer: Greg Stawicki
Copywriter: Scott Greggory
Developer: Charley Hobbs

Platinum Award - Binkelman On Hold Marketing / “That’s Pretty Hot”
Writer: Scott Greggory
Voices: Scott Greggory and Amy Scott
Recording Engineer: Don Binkley

 
Gold Award - International Translating Company On Hold Marketing / “Talented Tongues”
Writers: Cody McCloskey and Scott Greggory
Voices: Scott Greggory and Bob Seybold
Recording Engineers: Don Binkley 

Honorable Mention - Arrowwood Lodge On Hold Marketing / “Flippin’ TV”
Writers: Andrea Poteet, Cody McCloskey and Scott Greggory
Main Voices: Scott Greggory, Bob Seybold, Amy Scott, Ed Hunter and Steve Lovvorn
Recording Engineer: Chris Zaharias 

The MarCom Awards honor “outstanding achievement by creative professionals involved in the concept, direction, design and production of marketing and communication materials and programs.”

MarCom judges review about 6,000 entries from 34 countries and 300 categories related to print, web, video and strategic communications.

“Very funny!” wrote Andy Hedberg.

Andy was a judge at the 2016 MARCE Awards, the On Hold Messaging Association’s annual celebration of the industry’s best work.

He was describing “Interviews,” a humorous On Hold Marketing production our BusinessVoice team created for Binkelman Corp.  

“Really well written, and the voice actors were spot on,” his notes continued. “I laughed several times.”

That’s not the type of reaction most callers expect to have after they’ve been placed on hold.

But it’s a response we often elicit after creating Humor On Hold - a marriage of comedy and marketing. It’s humor that sells, says Scott Greggory.

“More than two decades ago, we started using the on hold channel to present our clients’ messages in a way that would encourage the audience to listen actively,” said Greggory, MadAveGroup’s Chief Creative Officer.

“Humor On Hold represents a choice we made to turn the ‘nothing moment’ of holding into a fun and memorable experience. It usually includes working the client’s marketing messages into the mix in a very palatable way.”

The experience BusinessVoice created in “Interviews” was fun enough to earn the Judge’s Choice trophy. It’s the sixth time BusinessVoice has received that particular honor over the MARCE Award's 12-year history. 

Listen to the winning production in the video above.

Judge Rachel McGrath noted that the work featured "great voice acting by the men, creative writing, and great use of sound effects."

"I really had to put some thought into finding something to criticize," wrote judge Emmett Andrews. "There's nothing perfect and there's always something that could be better, but in this case, it's a challenge to find."

Of the more than 6,000 entries submitted to the 22nd annual Communicator Awards, only 16 were chosen as Gold award winners in the Audio category.

Ours was one of them.

BusinessVoice - our On Hold Marketing agency - received a Gold Award of Excellence for a piece called "Interviews," an OHM production we created for Binkelman Corp. Listen to the humorous piece in the video below.

"Interviews" also earned a 2015 MarCom Award, as well as our internal On Hold Marketing of the Month award for August 2015. Read about the inspiration for the piece and some of the production elements here. 

"The work entered in the Communicator Awards serves as a benchmark in gauging the innovative ideas and capabilities of communications and marketing professionals around the world," wrote Linda Day, executive director of the Academy Interactive and Visual Arts, the organization that presents The Communicator Awards.

BusinessVoice has earned more awards for creative and marketing excellence than any other On Hold Marketing agency in the United States.

Ready to look at your caller experience differently? This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 419/724-7311. 

MadAveGroup agencies won two bronze awards at the 2016 ADDY Awards, presented February 25th by AAF / Toledo.

Our advertising and design agency, d2i, won in the Brochure category for work they created for Reichle Klein Group. Terry Lesniewicz and Jack Bollinger teamed up to produce the winning entry, seen at left.

Our SensoryMax team earned a bronze award as well for a video called "Toledo: It Matters Where You Make It." Michael Seay served as the project's producer and director. Watch it below.  

Can you imagine another company within your industry sending new business your way?

That's what happened to our On Hold Marketing agency BusinessVoice in late January 2016.

Arrowwood Lodge is a vacation destination in central Minnesota. Carolyn Bare is the location's General Manager.

When Carolyn began looking for an On Hold Marketing provider, she was searching for a company that could deliver an "out-of-the-box On Hold experience. Our [previous] on hold messaging was very ordinary; not at all what we wanted," she wrote. "We wanted something that would help guests remember us."

The first company Carolyn contacted produced a custom demo for Arrowwood, but it left her wanting more. That's when the company realized that they might have trouble fulfilling Arrowwood's desire for unique and creative On Hold Marketing.

So, they graciously suggested to Carolyn that she call BusinessVoice.

Within days, Arrowwood was a BusinessVoice client and our Creative team was on the job.

"We developed a concept that allows callers to hear someone flipping through TV channels," said Andrea Poteet, lead writer on the project. "The quick clips of the shows include humorous references to Arrowwood Lodge."

(Listen to the finished production in the video above.)

"This production absolutely fulfilled what we were looking for," wrote Carolyn. "We asked for something original, and you went above and beyond."

What did Carolyn like most about the work? "It was something that we had not heard before. We gave you free reign to do something unusual and fun, and you hit the nail on the head!"

"This is a great example of how BusinessVoice is different from others in the On Hold Marketing world," said BusinessVoice Director Steve Evert. "We believe your On Hold Marketing should receive the same type of attention and consideration that your digital and broadcast marketing do. In fact, we think that the impressions you make on hold are more important than those you may make with many forms of outbound marketing."

To learn more about that philosophy or discuss your marketing needs, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 419/724-7311.

Visit the Humor On Hold page at BusinessVoice.com.