ZAG Marketing: Event Marketing Company

JVC Uses “The V.I.P. Treatment” To Train Sales People & Educate Consumers on Its New Products

Gillette, New Jersey, USA, June 30, 2006 —JVC Company of America, Inc. is hitting the road once again this summer for its second annual Perfect Experience Road Tour. Developed and managed by ZAG Marketing, this 90 day, nationwide mobile marketing tour combines dealer salesperson training with consumer education and awareness featuring two of JVC’s latest product innovations. “The JVC Perfect Experience Road Tour 2006”, consists of two teams traveling simultaneously in 45’, customized tour buses to consumer electronics retailers nationwide. The buses have been transformed into beautiful, customized, mobile training facilities and also provide the backdrop for large consumer experiences on weekends.

According to Karl Bearnarth, VP of Marketing for JVC, “Last year was our first try at bringing training directly to the dealer’s doorstep, and it was very effective. So with our dealers’ encouragement, we’re bringing it back this year with an even more aggressive schedule that will allow us to visit even more stores for trainings and consumer events.”

Conducting up to 10 store trainings each day, JVC’s Road Tour visits hundreds of JVC dealers throughout the continental U.S. touting its newest line of Everio hard-disk camcorders, as well as its HD-ILA rear projection high definition TV’s. The JVC tour buses pull right up to the front doors of key retailers, roll out the branded, red carpet and velvet roped stanchions, and invite sales associates inside for a VIP training experience they’ll never forget. Inside the plush, rock-star surroundings of the buses, sales associates get revved up by trained JVC product specialists as they get hands-on with the products. Once they’ve completed their training, they’ll receive an official training certificate and gift for their participation. As a result, thousands of sales people will receive the type of interactive, high-impact training they’ll need to accurately and enthusiastically communicate the HD-ILA and Everio product features and benefits to their customers.

The Tour’s first priority is to educate and excite the sales associates who engage with consumers every day and talk to them about the lifestyle benefits of the products. “This program isn’t just about communicating the technical information; it’s about reinforcing the lifestyle benefits of these products so that sales associates can better connect with consumers needs”, says ZAG’s President, Jon Lesser. In addition to performing multiple dealer salesperson trainings each day, the JVC teams also set up an eye-catching, fully branded pavilion containing an interactive consumer experience, at select stores. Designed to attract and educate store patrons and passersby, each consumer experience consists of a 20’ x 40’ tented area which contains two distinct rooms.

Consumers can enjoy their favorite high definition films and learn more about HD-ILA technology in the cozy surroundings of the HD-ILA Home Theater room. After that, they can walk next door to the Everio Camcorder Studio to experience the entire Everio line of hard disk camcorders while JVC experts show them how to capture still and video images and edit on site.

The pavilion is designed so that JVC product specialists can talk with consumers about their specific needs and product experiences and answer their questions in an uncluttered, casual environment. Once consumers have experienced the products in this setting, they can then choose to purchase the featured JVC products inside each store.

According to Lesser, “the tour is highly strategic in that we’ve addressed all of the typical challenges of training these dealers by bringing a unique, first class experience directly to them, in their own parking lots and at no cost. Not only are we communicating the information in a clear and precise manner, we’re also getting sales people charged up about how amazing these products are so that their enthusiasm will translate to the sales floor.”

ZAG Marketing is an event-based marketing company specializing in the creation and implementation of live one-to-one consumer and trade experiences for top consumer products and service companies. ZAG has developed, executed and managed nationwide mobile marketing and sampling promotions for various clients including Atari, Campbell’s, JVC, La-Z-Boy, Leap Frog, Pfizer and Prestige Brands.

The JVC Perfect Experience Road Tour 2006 runs from late June through mid September.

One of the most successful brand launches in Pfizer’s category history results in 2 program renewals

Indianapolis, IN, USA, May 5, 2007—ZAG Marketing and Pfizer have hit the road for a third time in order to show a new generation of BenGay™ consumers how BenGay™ Patch instantly and effectively relieves sore muscles, aches and pains right when they need it most – at the “point of pain”. What better place to do this than as these active, 25 – 49 year olds cross the finish line at some of the most prestigious marathons nationwide. This latest BenGay™ Patch trial and awareness campaign kicked off on May 5th at the “One America 500 Festival Mini-Marathon” in Indianapolis and will travel to some of the largest and most strategic marathons across the country before making its way to the pinnacle of races – the “ING New York City Marathon”, on November 4th.

Using armies of trained product samplers, dressed in bright blue, highly visible, branded running suits, the BenGay™ Patch team saturates each event and distributes hundreds of thousands of full-size samples to ailing runners who eagerly accept the product to alleviate their pain. In addition to talking up the product via a carefully crafted “elevator pitch”, brand ambassadors dish out praise and support as runners make it through the home stretch of the course. “We’re not only interested in having consumers try a BenGay™ Patch and love it, we also want them to make a correlation between the genuine support shown by our brand ambassadors and the personality of the brand itself”, says Jon Lesser, President of ZAG Marketing. “This is a great example of how a brand can become the marketing “hero” of an event when the right type of tactic is used at the right time”, Lesser adds.

In addition to the brand omnipresence created by the roaming samplers and carefully placed signage, a high-impact BenGay™ Patch booth is used to educate consumers on a more intimate and detailed level and to capture data through a brief product survey. Consumers are also given $1 off coupons which help drive sales and provide an additional means to measure the programs success.

Touted as one of the most successful launches in category history, the BenGay™ Patch sampling campaign helped drive sales beyond client expectations and has physically touched over 3 MM targeted consumers to date.

ZAG Marketing is an event-based marketing company specializing in the creation and implementation of live one-to-one consumer and trade experiences for top consumer products and service companies. ZAG has developed, executed and managed nationwide mobile marketing and sampling promotions for various clients including Campbell’s, Frito Lay, JVC, La-Z-Boy, Leap Frog, Pfizer, Prestige Brands and Smoothie King Franchises, Inc.

From Algebra Tutor to Musical Instrument, The FLY™ Pentop Computer ‘Makes What You Write Really Work’

Gillette, New Jersey, USA, August 11, 2006 —ZAG Marketing is encouraging tweens to “Say Hi to FLY™” this summer with a grass roots campaign designed to turn the “Educational Toy of the Year” into the latest kid craze. The “FLY Summer Demo Tour” kicked off on July 28th at The New Jersey Festival of Ballooning and will be making its way around the country as it reaches out to the 8 – 14 year old demographic in a fun and highly connective way.

The tour sets up at large, family-friendly, consumer events nationwide and combines supervised, hands-on trial with product education. As consumers enter the 20’ x 20’ branded “FLY™ Zone” tent, they gather in the emcee room for a 7 minute, kid-friendly product presentation highlighting some of the products key features and benefits.

The FLY™ emcee shows kids how to solve algebra problems, translate their Spanish homework and draw a calculator on the specially designed FLY Paper.™ A tiny camera in the bottom of the FLY™ pen takes 75 pictures per second, so that whatever you write will actually come to life! If that wasn’t cool enough, the emcee then shows kids how to draw keyboards and drums and use the FLY™ pen to make their own music and record it directly onto the FLY™ pen itself!

Once the FLY™ emcee has sufficiently wowed the crowd, its time for consumers to head into the FLY™ Arcade to try FLY™ for themselves! Here, kids can play specially designed game pads that include Fear Factor™, Pirates of the Caribbean©, X-Games™, Brain Teasers™ and more as they grow increasingly more excited about all the things they can do with FLY™.

According to Jon Lesser, President of ZAG Marketing, “The FLY™ Pentop Computer is a totally unique product to the marketplace and lends itself to event marketing because it is highly demonstrable. By the time kids reach our booth, they may have heard of FLY™ but many don’t know exactly what it is or how it works. Through the Demo Tour, we can educate tweens in a totally engaging way and convert them into brand enthusiasts by the time they walk out of our booth.”

But getting kids excited about FLY™ isn’t the tour’s only objective. According to Dizzie Ramsey, the tour’s emcee, “Even though kids are often amazed by FLY’s capabilities, it’s the parents who need to be assured that their purchase is worthwhile. This is why we not only talk about the cool game features of FLY™ but also highlight the educational aspects of the product. And believe it or not, the kids are equally as excited that FLY™ can help them in school as they are about all of the cool, fun stuff they can do with the product.”

ZAG Marketing is an event-based marketing company specializing in the creation and implementation of live one-to-one consumer and trade experiences for top consumer products and service companies. ZAG has developed, executed and managed nationwide mobile marketing and sampling promotions for various clients including Atari, Campbell’s, Frito Lay, JVC, La-Z-Boy, Leap Frog, Pfizer and Prestige Brands.

The FLY™ Demo Tour visits 8 markets and runs through October.

Cool Drinks & “Brain Freeze” Contests Promote a
Healthy Lifestyle

Plant City, FL, USA, March 5, 2008—Smoothie King® Franchises, Inc. and ZAG Marketing have launched their second annual “Smoothie King® On The Go Tour.” As a six month mobile marketing campaign, consumers can look forward to a special sampling of Smoothie King’s freshly-made smoothies with real fruit ingredients. The mobile tour has been strategically planned to make stops at over 24 cities where Smoothie King® Franchise stores are prevalent in the marketplace. “The Orange KaBAM Van” (named after a wholesome banana/orange/mango smoothie) will be back on the road visiting fairs, festivals, sporting events and other major events from Tampa, Florida to San Francisco, California.

Inside a self-sufficient, mobile smoothie kitchen, Smoothie King® team members work quickly and carefully to blend the freshest ingredients into one of Smoothie King’s featured drinks, called “Caribbean Way”. While consumers receive their tasty smoothies, they are immersed in a 40’ x 15’, branded environment complete with an “On The Go” style café area; an emcee conducting fruit trivia contests and “brain freeze” contests for great prizes; an information pavilion where consumers can learn more about Smoothie King’s products, stores and lifestyle-related causes and more.

During last year’s pilot tour nearly 80,000 hand blended samples and 60,000 coupons were distributed in 7 cities nationwide. Since franchisees saw such a significant increase in store traffic following the ’07 tour, the program was expanded to a 25 week schedule in ’08.

According to Jon Lesser, President of ZAG Marketing, “Consumers are shocked that we’re actually using freshly prepared, whole fruits on-site rather than mixes or packaged goods. While bringing in fresh produce every day and upholding strict health codes in each market represents an interesting logistical challenge, we are able to preserve the integrity of the product and give consumers the same product experience they would have in the stores.” Lesser adds “Smoothie King® has raised the bar significantly with their products and consumers who have never tried them before are blown away once they taste them.”

Our company’s mission is to relentlessly influence more and more people to achieve a healthier lifestyle,” said Steve Kuhnau, President and Co-founder of Smoothie King®. “By touring the country, we are making it even easier for people to try our smoothies and learn more about how smoothies can complement any lifestyle — to bulk up, trim down or get energy.” “The Smoothie King® On The Go Tour” travels across the US through August and includes the key markets of Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and New York. In 2008, Smoothie King® Inc. has grown to over 500 locations in 32 states and 25 in Seoul, Korea.

ZAG Marketing is an event-based marketing company specializing in the creation and implementation of live one-to-one consumer and trade experiences for top consumer products and service companies. ZAG has developed, executed and managed nationwide mobile marketing and sampling promotions for various clients including Campbell’s, Frito Lay, JVC, La-Z-Boy, Leap Frog, Pfizer, Prestige Brands and Smoothie King Franchises, Inc.

You Can If You Find The “Point of Pick”

ZAG Marketing Helps BrushPicks® Toothpicks To Become Category Leader Through Strategic Sampling Program!

Gillette, New Jersey, USA, September 12, 2006 —It used to be that when someone asked for a toothpick they’d get the generic, wooden splintery kind you’d find at the hostess desk of any restaurant. But ask someone who’s experienced The Doctor’s® BrushPicks® toothpick and you’ll get more than just a cleaner smile, you’ll also get the most enthusiastic consumer you’ve ever seen.

Over the past 4.5 years, ZAG Marketing has been reaching out to consumers at “the point of pick” in a grass roots sampling campaign that has been attributed to the significant sales growth of the BrushPicks® brand since the programs inception. Not only has the brand doubled in size each year since the program began, It has also become the leader in its category.

Traveling to food related fairs and festivals throughout the country, the ZAG team sends its highly enthusiastic brand ambassadors to roam these events passing out BrushPicks® to consumers in need, and pitching them on the products unique features and benefits. After all, where better to introduce consumers to a new toothpick than at large, consumer events where consumers are constantly getting “street foods” from barbecued turkey legs to kettle corn, stuck in their teeth?

According to Kelly Kaplan, VP of Marketing for the brand from 2003 – 2005, “Since 2003, the BrushPicks® sampling program has accounted for between 80 and 90 percent of the brands overall marketing plan. The sales growth throughout that period has been largely attributed to the success of this program.” The level of enthusiasm for this program is not one-sided. Jon Lesser, President of ZAG Marketing, the company that developed and executes the program says, “As much as we enjoy working on some of the worlds biggest brands in highly integrated marketing campaigns, It’s also wonderful to work with a brand like BrushPicks® whose impressive growth can be attributed in large part to the work we’re doing in the field”.

Owned by Prestige Brands, Inc., whose portfolio also includes such brands as Spic & Span®, Comet®, Chloroseptic® and Clear Eyes®; BrushPicks® has several unique, patented characteristics that set it apart from its archaic counterpart. First, BrushPicks® are made from plastic so that they don’t splinter like wooden toothpicks do. One side of the BrushPick® has a wedge which is meant to get into smaller gaps in the teeth while the other side has tiny bristles that clean built up food particles between teeth. Brushpicks® also have a pliable middle so that you can bend them to reach into back teeth where food sometimes gets stuck. For all these reasons and more, people who have tried BrushPicks® swear by them.

According to Lesser, “This is the most cult –like following of a brand I’ve ever seen. Not only do loyal BrushPicks users profess their love for this product to our field staff, we also have first time users hunting us down at events once they’ve tried them, to tell us how wonderful they are. This is event marketing at its best!.”

The BrushPicks campaign runs year round. Look for them at your favorite food festivals nationwide.