The internet has unparalleled resources available to build, market and grow businesses, and Casa Dana Group is here to help identify and deploy the best tools, at the right time, with the right mix of procedures to meet your goals.

Web projects include:

• blogging platforms
• nonprofit communities
• corporate branding
• informational sites
• full e-commerce sites for both business-to-business and consumer markets
• online product catalogs
• educational sites
• digital publishing of print content
• audio and full motion video content

Print publishing, online communities, internet magazines, event marketing, non-profit support, and social innovation projects are all represented here.

Please browse through these examples by clicking on individual images to view the sample work better, and as always, we welcome your feedback and questions…. How can we help you today?

These two Green Expo events took place in conjunction with existing boat shows at the Dana Point Harbor and at the Channel Islands Harbor. Our objective was to establish a new event identity that can last for many years and can serve as the identity package for both harbor events. The solution was a logo that supports name changes at the bottom and also works with the general name “Green Expo in the Harbor.” The campaigns included print ads and in-store collateral, each with unique discount coupons designed to give a strong incentive to order tickets online. This created unique tracking codes for each element of the marketing program and allow us to measure the effectiveness of various publications.

The overall strategy included generating pre-sales, building opt-in communication channels for email and social media campaigns, and generating both word-of-mouth and PR buzz.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwQhbqtn7YM

Social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the famous current examples of how the landscape is changing… and there will be many more. We can help with that, too.

Here are some examples of unique online marketing projects Casa Dana Group has created. What is most important is that every project using a shiny “new” tool is based on solid, strategically precise, brand and marketing objectives.

This is the essence of contemporary brand management in the digital age… solid, strategically precise, brand and marketing objectives.

Effective marketers must be flexible and willing to try new techniques, and Casa Dana Group has always done so. This also always starts by applying a strong set of clear objectives and metrics to assess exactly how these marketing programs contribute to the goals at hand.

The first campaign, called “Cross Out,” was designed as a national consumer brand positioning spot with the objective of putting car buyers in control of the buying process at the client’s website, autobytel.com. It takes the stereotypes of brash,  manipulative car salesmen and crosses out their controlling words, replacing them with the viewers’ words, visually using the familiar icons of text editing on the computer screen to put you, the viewer, in control of the process… taking phrases like “I’m always intimidated by car salesmen” and transforming them to “I’ll never be intimidated by car salesmen again.” This spot ran in a national market with a multimillion dollar media buy.

This spot, “Laptop/Ragtop” was also a brand awareness and positioning spot building on the sentiments of freedom, ease and control, creating a connection between the perceived freedom of a convertible (or ragtop) and your laptop. This spot also involved a co-marketing agreement with Ford that included an integrated sweepstakes campaign and other rich-media online marketing tools. This spot also ran nationally with a multimillion dollar media buy.

Worked with Intel’s agency to develop and produce a highly successful co-marketing brand spot for Intel’s Pentium III launch. This script involved a car shopper who while standing in the car dealer’s showroom, asks the salesman if he can look under the hood. Just then a forklift crashes through the showroom window, smashes its forks into the side of a new car and lifts it up for the shopper to look underneath. The car then crashes to the floor. The car salesman is stunned. Of course, this is impossible in real life. The screen then shows a computer animation of how a shopper can accomplish the same thing, even looking under the car, by using virtual reality software on the autobytel.com website powered by Intel’s Pentium processor. Again, the brand positioning was to fortify the idea that car shoppers are in control of the buying process if they use autobytel.com. Intel’s objectives were served by illustrating a new realm of possibilities for using more computing power. This spot also ran nationally with a multimillion dollar media buy.

Newswire services are no longer accessible only to the wizards of PR, and companies can now communicate messages in all sorts of new ways. Ironically, one of the most important ways to effectively communicate on the Internet right now is to listen as much as you talk.

Casa Dana Group can help guide clients toward the right tools for this. Here is a bit of information about some of our past accomplishments in the world of traditional PR, all of which were based on solid branding and communication objectives.

As Creative Director at autobytel.com, worked extensively with top high-tech PR firm RBI Communications on story development, producing digital and video assets for video press releases, press conferences, trade events, and online media assets for journalists and reporters. Also developed video news releases and press coverage, which helped guide the company to a top-ten position of consumer dot-com brands.

Assumed executive PR responsibilities for fast-growing internet company. Conducted agency review and engaged Middleberg + Associates, “Inside PR” magazine’s Best Public Relations Agency of the Year. Established positioning and messaging platform, trained Middleberg’s staff, set PR plan, and guided overall PR development from startup through venture funding and product development.

Created brand positioning and messaging for ground-breaking internet advertising company working with Brain Solis and his PR firm Future Works. Established the analyst relations plan and managed the relationship with this PR firm to deliver the company’s message to key editors and analysts in the online advertsing, beyond-the-banner and email marketing industry segments.

]]> http://www.casadana.com/2009/11/public-relations/feed/ 0 http://www.casadana.com/2009/11/a-garden-in-laguna/ http://www.casadana.com/2009/11/a-garden-in-laguna/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:29:00 +0000 admin http://www.casadana.com/?p=1242 Casa Dana Group published this well reviewed, hard-bound book of essays by Laguna Beach gardening legend, Hortense Miller, the proceeds of which support her non-profit group, which makes this world-class garden available to the public.

A Garden in Laguna: The Garden Writings of Hortense Miller
by Hortense Miller

Charming garden essays about life in a renowned vertical garden in Laguna Beach, CA, with more than 1200 species on less than 3 acres. Subjects include the effects of drastic fire on a garden, the intricate relations of animals to a garden, historical attitudes to plants, often treated with humor. Accompanied by 16 pages of stunning photographs by Steven A. Gunther, and a biographical essay about Hortense Miller. Large format, 7 by 10.

“The book is a gem of elegance and simplicity… a book of knowledge and insight.”
– Los Angeles Times, Jan. 6, 2002

“[A] beautiful book of her essays, covering more than three decades… as idiosyncratic as the garden she created.”
– Coastline News, Dec. 21, 2001