Work Archives - The Wendt Agency | Montana Marketing Agency

2019 Telly Awards

The 2019 Telly awards have been announced, and Wendt is coming out extra shiny! This year, The Telly Awards celebrates 40 years of honoring video and television creativity, with a theme of “A story for every screen.” As you can imagine, the competition is fierce. 12,000 entries were received across all categories. Judges award based on content/quality of message, production and execution, and overall experience.

While we always appreciate it when our high-quality creative work earns well-deserved awards, our truest success is partnering with our clients to give them a product we are all proud of and that brings results. Thank you to the Blackfeet Tribe – Safe on All Roads initiative, Montana Lottery, and Shodair Children’s Hospital for letting us share your stories and encourage your success.

Shodair Children’s Hospital – Local TV: General-Hospital and General-Not-for-profit

Montana Lottery Big Sky Bonus – Local TV: Campaign-Promotional

MDT Impaired Driving – A Blackfeet Crisis – Non-Broadcast: General-Cultural

The Telly Awards were founded in 1979 and honor outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs; video and film productions; and online commercials, videos, and films.

Wendt Agency2019-05-31T11:05:31-06:00May 24th, 2019|Wendt Buzz, Work|1 Comment

Wendt 2016 Telly Awards

2016 was an exciting year for broadcast work and even more exciting is the fact that we were honored with four Bronze Telly Awards! View the award-winning work for the Montana Lottery and Resolve Montana below.

Montana Lottery – Big Sky Bonus

Montana Lottery – Grills Gone Wild

Resolve Montana – It Isn’t Easy

The Telly Awards were founded in 1979 and honor outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs; video and film productions; and online commercials, videos, and films.

Katie Schrader2017-04-13T10:59:29-06:00April 10th, 2017|Wendt Buzz, Work|0 Comments

Bringing Smiles to Montanans

Is there anything better than smiling Montanans? There is so much in our state to smile about—beautiful scenery, friendly people, endless outdoor recreation, the change of seasons, and the Montana Lottery, just to name a few. The Montana Lottery provides entertainment and fun for Montana residents, and their new Big Sky Bonus game is definitely something to smile about!

Wendt partnered with the Montana Lottery when launching their newest game, Big Sky Bonus, a Montana-only daily progressive that provides some of the best odds of any Lottery game. Our goal with branding and new creative messaging was to be entertaining, fun, and memorable. This was accomplished through showcasing real people celebrating Montana and the Montana Lottery. For a deeper look at this campaign and the elements used to bring awareness to the new Montana-only game, click here.

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:53-06:00October 25th, 2016|Work|0 Comments

Smith Team Website

July 21, 2016

Wendt partnered with Smith Team Real Estate to create a refreshed web presence. The new site was designed to inspire users inviting them to easily explore and pursue their dream home on Flathead Lake.

The site includes beautiful photography of the area, an extensive property search database, social media feeds, featured videos, a custom login feature with email alerts, and additional content about the real estate team and the Flathead Lake area.

Check it out—your dream home might be waiting for you!

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:53-06:00July 21st, 2016|Work|0 Comments

Connecting with Montana Families for a Brighter Future

June 6, 2016

Developing creative messaging that motivates and resonates with target audiences and invokes action is what we strive to do at Wendt every day. Being tasked with this responsibility for an organization that helps provide a means for a better life for Montana children makes our jobs even more rewarding.

Achieve Montana, formerly Montana Family Education Savings Program (MFESP), provides college savings vehicles to help families save for higher education expenses and avoid incurring added debt in order to send their children to college.

MFESP hired Wendt as their marketing partner at the same time they were transitioning to a new plan manager with an enhancement in product offerings. With these changes on the horizon, it was the perfect time to go through a rebranding process with MFESP.

Achieve Montana by Wendt Agency The first step in the process Wendt recommended was to rename the organization. We presented four options that included taglines and rationales for each recommendation. The chosen name was Achieve Montana with the tagline, “Their tomorrow starts today.” Achieve represents the goals of the savings program: parents want to achieve savings for their children and children will be able to achieve their academic dreams because of the program. It is easy for parents to get caught up in the short-term tasks and concerns of raising children. The tagline reinforces an important message–childrens’ futures are impacted by decisions made today. If you have the foresight to save now, your child will look forward to a more successful tomorrow.

Once the new name was chosen, we walked through multiple branding exercises with the Achieve Montana team to help guide the brand identity and creative messaging. Utilizing strong imagery, meaningful headlines, informative copy, and an inviting call to action, the Achieve Montana creative campaign centers around the dreams and aspirations of both children and their families. The campaign was created to feel touching, empowering, authentic, memorable, and to resonate with Montana families.

For a complete look at this creatively executed campaign and the elements used to establish an emotional connection with Montana families, click here.

Katie Schrader2016-10-26T09:28:54-06:00June 6th, 2016|Clients, Work|0 Comments

Crafting a Story with More Than Words

What makes an image more than a picture?

When it tells it’s own story. Even if that story is different for everyone.

When it sinks into your soul and leaves you in awe.

When it makes you feel something, like carefree joy.

Or a quickening pulse.

When it speaks to you personally, motivating you to call a loved one…

…evoking a fond memory…

…or urging you to wonder.

What makes an image an effective marketing tool?

When it speaks so loudly, no words are needed.

Effective marketing uses photography to evoke emotion and connect with your audience.

Photography

May is National Photography Month, celebrate by capturing images that tell a story all their own.

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:54-06:00May 20th, 2016|Work|0 Comments

Wendt at the ADDYs

March 9, 2016

At Wendt, we are in the creative business. Our greatest reward is seeing our creative work produce results for our clients. If that creative work also wins industry awards…even better!

This year The Wendt Agency was honored with seven awards at the American Advertising Awards show, otherwise known as the ADDYs, which took place last weekend in our home town of Great Falls and was hosted by the Great Falls Ad Club.

The ADDY awards are the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition. An ADDY award means your work is being recognized for creative excellence in the art of advertising. It attracts over 50,000 entries every year in local competitions across the country.

Of the seven awards Wendt received, four honor our new website and self-promotional materials.

We also received awards for the logo designed for our client Achieve Montana, print ads created for Butte CVB, and a social media campaign developed for Central Montana.

We are very happy that our creative work was recognized and honored. Those pieces will now move on to the regional competition.

Of course, the ADDYs also give us the opportunity to get together with the other agencies from across Montana. Looking at all the amazing work created in our state during the last year, sharing the stories which drive our creativity and pondering the existence of mermaids at the Sip ‘n Dip all added up to a magical evening!

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:54-06:00March 9th, 2016|Wendt Buzz, Work|0 Comments

Effective Branding Requires a Strategy

September 28, 2015

As a full service marketing and public relations agency, Wendt helps to develop and manage our clients’ brand reputations on a daily basis. Our goal is to develop and convey a strategic and consistent message for our clients to communicate with their target audiences. So, how does one define branding? Branding is the process of establishing and continuing to manage an organization’s reputation. It is the relationship between the consumer and a product; it is the feeling or emotion that is evoked when a consumer (or potential consumer) thinks about your business or product.

Wendt has our very own process that we follow when developing brand strategies for our clients. From research, audits, development of positioning statements, implementation and management, each step has equal importance in developing a strategy that is differentiating with an accurate reflection of your mission. In today’s massive world of media, messages have a greater chance of becoming diluted. Developing and practicing a strategic and consistent brand message is crucial to succeeding in the marketing landscape. With a strategic approach you are able to develop messages that are compelling and memorable; it creates a structure that will ensure you are delivering a consistent message through all channels that will affect the consumer quickly and more significantly.

To view some of our branding projects click here.

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:55-06:00September 28th, 2015|Industry Trends, Work|0 Comments

What is your reputation?

September 21, 2015

Everyone talks about brands these days. Product brands, corporate brands, sports figure’s brands, personal brands. Even people who don’t know what branding is, talk about branding. Let’s get right down to it. Managing a brand is simply managing a reputation. And as we all know, reputation is everything.

So, let’s break it down.

We need to manage our reputations. We’ve all known this since we were little kids as we tried to “fit in” by wearing Guess jeans or styling our hair like Farrah Fawcett. OK, maybe I’m dating myself just a bit. But think about it, pretty much everything we do personally and professionally is all about managing our personal reputation. Business is no different. Just think about how we want customers and potential customers to think of us and act accordingly. We want the rest of the world to bestow upon us the reputation we desire. We do everything we can to EARN that reputation.

Why do we do this?

— Because we want to establish trust through the promise we provide

— It builds loyalty so our customers come back to buy our products over and over again

— And it creates a measurable difference by creating market value and therefore our business grows

Seems pretty simple, right? Not really. It takes hard work, attention to detail, consistency and a willingness to stick to your promise and not waiver. And I hate to SHOUT here, but please remember that communicating your reputation with strong marketing and creative strategies is critical. Too many try to reinvent reputations over and over again with the changing winds or because they become bored. All this causes is confusion, distrust and a less than stellar reputation.

So do what you do, do it incredibly well, communicate it and your reputation (brand) will follow.

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:55-06:00September 21st, 2015|Work|0 Comments

Content Marketing

August 25, 2015

Long gone are the days of businesses with effective marketing preaching only about what they do and who they are. Marketing is no longer just about a business selling a product or service, instead it is about building a brand that people can connect to. Today’s marketing landscape allows consumers to truly interact with brands in more ways than ever before. Marketing and advertising used to be more of a “push” process with businesses pushing their message out to their audience in a controlled setting. It is now more about “push and pull.” Effective marketing is a two-way conversation between businesses and consumers. Consumer’s expectations have changed, they expect real-time marketing, on-demand information and readily accessible answers and feedback. Messaging should be authentic, content driven and non-traditional. Content marketing is defined as being focused not on selling, but on simply communicating with customers and prospects. The idea is to inspire business and loyalty from buyers by delivering consistent, ongoing valuable information. Basically, it is the art of communicating without selling. Companies are pushing information out all of the time to potential consumers; effective marketing needs to include valuable and relevant content. Consumers will interact with your brand if there is reason for them to do so by giving them content that will cause them to stop, read, think and engage.

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:55-06:00August 25th, 2015|Industry Trends, Work|0 Comments

Burke Ranch Outfitters – Branding

December 5, 2013

Burke Ranch Outfitters faced an enviable problem. The business was so stable and established that the existing logo didn’t necessarily reflect the image of the current owner/operator. Wendt was hired to develop something fresh and unexpected, while maintaining the outfitter’s solid reputation for quality, honesty and abundance.

Wendt wanted to deliver something beyond the client’s expectations, a logo that would unequivocally represent the forward thinking that is at the foundation of Burke Ranch Outfitters while providing a not-so-literal image of what they were about. We developed an interpretation of a trophy mule deer in the negative space that was created between the “B,” representing Burke, and backwards “R,” representing Ranch. The logo will be unveiled during this season’s hunting season.

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:28:59-06:00December 5th, 2013|Work|0 Comments

From Empty Bottle to Branded Wine

by Brenda Peterson
November 27, 2012

Does it take a bunch of winos to come up with an incredible wine brand and identity? Perhaps.

So a friend of mine, Bob Delong, who just happens to be a wine distributor, comes to me with this opportunity to develop a brand and label for a boutique wine that will be distributed exclusively by Vintage Sellers in Great Falls. Being someone who enjoys a good glass of wine, I jumped at the chance to work on this project. It’s not every day that we have an opportunity to create a brand and identity from scratch. Especially for such a fun product!

The first order of business, gather the amazing Wendt creative and strategy crew to brainstorm! I knew it wasn’t going to be hard to explain the product. We just happen to have a few folks around here who enjoy tasting, collecting and drinking wine. It does happen to be a regular topic of discussion around the water cooler at Wendt. Lucky me.

So we gathered to come up with an identity that was befitting of this Cabernet Sauvignon…the biggest challenge we had was that we hadn’t had the chance to actually taste the wine. Gene Betz, owner of Vintage Sellers, did a little tasting with some of his clients; unfortunately I was out of town that week so we were flying a little blind. I did have the chance to visit directly with the wine maker, Tom Baer from Solana Cellars in Shandon, California. He is a great guy, can talk your ear off about vino. He was a great help along the way.

One of our goals was to make sure that this wine had a Central Montana focus. We discussed the attributes of our area, clear blue sky, the river and yes, our notable wind. We bantered about the color of a Cab, rouge, crimson, garnet, currant and red. If you’ve never sat in a creative session like this you know it’s a great deal of fun. There is no right or wrong answer. It’s just a free flow of thoughts…each thought feeding the next. Each person responding to the energy in the room. Once we had landed on a direction we were especially fond of, we then started working on the label identity. Kara Smith, our Senior Art Director, took the project. She gave graphic life to our vision. It’s a beautiful reflection of our area and an exceptional representation of the lush wine inside the bottle.

Here is our Inspiration for Current: Plays off the current in the water and the wind as something strong, powerful and ever-moving. With a strong current, you are just along for the journey, the current will decide the path. This word also evokes the images of the color red and the richness associated with that color.

And the wine description on the label:
THE MONTANA CURRENT: Flowing over untouched rocks of crimson and chocolate, or persuasively moving through our dramatic skies. Whether in the water or air, a strong current chooses the path of your journey. Unwind and enjoy the journey the Cabernet has planned for you.

Many of us buy products because of identity and packaging. This wine will certainly draw you in for those reasons, but will keep you coming back because of what’s in the bottle. Pick yourself up one (or two) at Vintage Sellers. You won’t be disappointed.

And look for more Wendt identity inspiration – there may be another wine or two coming soon.

Wendt Agency2016-10-26T09:29:00-06:00November 27th, 2012|Work|0 Comments