Results tagged "Linda Passante" from The Halo Group - News
The Halo Group Revs Up Marketing Selecting Tom Cunningham as Chief Marketing Officer
Tom brings over 20 years of experience in marketing communications, brand strategy, client services and business development to The Halo Group. From some of the largest traditional advertising and public relations agencies to mid-size independents, Tom’s areas of expertise include, sports and entertainment, retail, consumer packaged goods and business to business. He has worked with iconic brands including, Reebok, Top Flite Golf, The NHL and General Motors.
“I believe that even the largest brands are looking for a new kind of agency - agile, business-oriented, creative, ROI driven. To be competitive you need to be a more aggressive marketer,” said Cunningham. “I was really attracted to the world-class creative, strategic and management talent, which will no doubt elevate us as we grow the business over the next few years.”
As clients have gotten savvier regarding marketing, Halo’s Chief Executive Officer Linda Passante believes this is an opportune time for businesses as well as small agencies.
“When facing a financially challenging economy, those companies that are assertive will emerge ahead,” said Passante. “Don’t cut your marketing – this is the time to double down.”
About The Halo Group
The Halo Group is a marketing communications and branding agency that brings experts in business, branding, advertising and public relations together to work as a single team. Halo helps companies with every experience that a customer has with their brand. The Halo team works alongside a select group of international, national and regional clients who understand the value of talent and professionalism. Halo’s work has been honored with some of the industry’s top awards; Telly, Webby, and Internet Advertising Competition Awards but, more important, these campaigns are building relationships around the globe. The Halo Group was founded in 1994 and is a member of AAAA, PRSA, NAWBO, and WBNY.
# # #
Branding and marketing communications agency, The Halo Group has been chosen by Virginia-based Infinit Software Solutions, Inc, to launch Linguizz, the first visually-driven vocabulary and English learning system that accelerates students’ word retention and comprehension.
Answering this demand for improved English language education tools, English language learning expert Michael K. Bender and software and visual designer Art Toezer, CEO and Founder of Infinit Software Solutions Inc, developed Linguizz. Created for not only faster learning, but also longer retention and superior comprehension, the unique learning system combines visuals, word definitions and pronunciations to provide students and teachers with enhanced context to understand English vocabulary.
“Halo has an excellent understanding of the crowded educational marketplace and what it takes for our brand to successfully connect with our customers,” said Toezer.
The agency’s focus will be on creating and enhancing Linquizz’s brand identity, positioning the system as a global platform for learning English by using powerful visual imagery that translates words across borders. The New York-based agency will also provide integrated marketing communications services to build brand awareness amongst key trade and consumer education audiences including creative, advertising, packaging, trade shows and public relations.
“With our extensive knowledge and experience in global education, we immediately knew that this was a product the market had been waiting for,” said Linda Passante, CEO, The Halo Group. "Halo’s reputation for helping brands break into highly competitive industries, makes working with Linguizz a natural fit for our team.”
# # #
About The Halo Group
The Halo Group is a New York based marketing communications and branding agency that brings experts in business, branding, advertising and public relations together to work as a single team. Founded in 1994,The Halo team works alongside a select group of international, national and regional clients, helping them with every experience that a customer has with their brand. Halo’s global campaigns have been honored with some of the industry’s top awards, Telly, Webby, and Internet Advertising Competition Awards. The Halo Group is also one of only three New York City partners of Pinnacle Worldwide, an international partnership of public relations firms in dozens of cities around the world. For more information, please visit www.thehalogroup.net.
NEW YORK, June 13, 2012 – New York’s branding and marketing communications agency, The Halo Group, has joined Pinnacle Worldwide, Inc., an international network of nearly 50 leading independently owned public relations firms located on four continents and dozens of cities throughout the world. The agency will be the third member based in New York.
“Pinnacle Worldwide provides a solution for independent agencies to better serve national and international clients,” said Linda Passante, CEO/Co-founder of The Halo Group. “Members with varied expertise are committed to supporting one another. This partnership adds valuable resources; an investment in our firm and its future.”
“We are very pleased to partner with The Halo Group,” said Johanna Mouton, Executive Director Pinnacle Worldwide. “Our members were impressed by their superior reputation in the industry, wealth of integrated offerings and resources for our members. I believe Linda Passante and her team at Halo will bring a new and fresh perspective to the Pinnacle network.”
About Pinnacle Worldwide
About The Halo Group
The Halo Group is a New York based marketing communications and branding agency that brings experts in business, branding, advertising and public relations together to work as a single team. Founded in 1994,The Halo team works alongside a select group of international, national and regional clients, helping them with every experience that a customer has with their brand. Halo’s global campaigns have been honored with some of the industry’s top awards, Telly, Webby, and Internet Advertising Competition Awards. The Halo Group is also one of only three New York City partners of Pinnacle Worldwide, an international partnership of public relations firms in dozens of cities around the world. For more information, please visit www.thehalogroup.net.
# # #
A Brand Planning Group Designed for Today’s CMO
The Halo Group, a New York-based branding and marketing communications agency, has expanded the size and scope of its strategic brand planning group to better guide clients across today’s demanding consumer landscape. Led by Chief Strategic Officer Mark Sutter, the newly named Brand Experience and Performance Strategy Group is at the core of Halo’s marketing services offering.
“With their expanded responsibilities, chief marketing officers are looking for confident voices engaged in the marketing conversation,” said Sutter. “The Halo Group understands the challenges of CMOs and has the depth and breadth of expertise to be the strategic partner they can trust.”
The restructured group looks at customer experiences across its client’s entire business, internally and externally, from operations and communications, to ensure that the agency brings creativity to every aspect of their brand, and performance from every experience.
“Brands are under siege. Unforgiving consumers are connecting with business in new ways, for new reasons and demand perfection in every interaction,” said Sutter. “Everything from your return policy to valet parking impacts your brand, and goes viral, positively or negatively, in seconds and globally.”
The restructuring comes with the promotion of Chris Barredo, to Senior Brand Planner and the hire of Evan Walker as the Marketing and Consumer Analyst. Barredo manages all phases of strategy development pertaining the client’s business goals, brand audits, research and strategic direction for selected clients. Walker will support the group in the tracking and management of performance metrics and development of consumer insights and behavior with consumer research tools and methods.
“To create loyalty, our clients must bring creativity to every aspect of their business,” said Linda Passante, CEO/Founding Partner of The Halo Group. “So we’ve expanded our strategic planning responsibilities to look at all customer experiences across our client’s business.”
About The Halo Group
# # #
Branding and Marketing Communications Agency Honored for Innovative Promotion Campaign
NEW YORK, November 15, 2011 – The Halo Group, a New York-based branding and marketing communications agency, announced today that it was awarded a 2011 MarCom Award, an international competition that recognizes the creative achievements by marketing and communication professionals. The Halo Group won a Gold award in the Marketing/Promotion Campaign category for developing the ‘Marketing Innovation Reality Check’, a mobile survey sponsorship at Columbia University Business School's Center on Global Brand Leadership BRITE '11 Conference.
The Halo Group's mobile survey was accessed via a QR code and promoted by a program that included conference signage, social media and an onsite “street team.” This enabled attendees to participate in a survey, enter a drawing and understand the real internal challenges to creating, implementing and measuring innovation within their organization. Survey respondents were BRITE conference attendees ranging from CMOs from top brands to leading academics to some of the foremost marketing and branding agencies.
“It’s a privilege to be presented with this esteemed honor,” said Linda Passante, CEO/Founding Partner of The Halo Group. “We’re always striving to be recognized for our work we create for clients so it is very gratifying to win for our own marketing efforts, especially as we believe our survey gave attendees a candid look at our shared challenges and brought clarity to those that serve marketing driven organizations.”
The MarCom Awards are administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, an international organization consisting of several thousand creative professionals. The mission of the MarCom Awards is to honor excellence and recognize the creativity, hard work and generosity of marketing and communication professionals. There were over 6,000 entries from throughout the United States, Canada and several other countries in the 2011 competition.
# # #
The Halo Group Sponsors Mobile Marketing Reality Check Survey at Realtime NY 11
The conference highlighted discussions about today’s best realtime marketing case studies from brands including McDonald’s, Delta, Pepsi and NHL. During his presentation, ‘The Future of the Realtime Brand’, Shiv Singh of PepsiCo Beverages stated that he believed at least 50% of one’s budget should be on realtime marketing efforts. However when asked in Halo’s survey about their current marketing budget, most attendees said their organizations allocated less than a quarter of their budget to realtime, social media or mobile marketing efforts.
“It’s no surprise that brands are increasingly utilizing emerging technology in their marketing strategies however it is interesting how organizations continue to oppose allotting a bigger budget for realtime marketing,” said Linda Passante, CEO/Co-Founder, The Halo Group. “There are certain realities that are making the adoption of new communication strategies difficult and from this survey we can assume that financial resources play a large role.”
The survey identified four key areas marketers need to focus on in order to effectively implement realtime marketing: culture, training, technology and budget. The following are the key findings for each area:
- 1 out 4 respondents described receptivity to innovation in their company as only “baby steps permitted”
- Only 14% of those who answered had a highly developed training program for staff that manages their brands’ presence in social media
- Only 25% of survey-takers have a completely mobile-friendly website
- 71% of respondents allocate less than 25% of their budget to realtime marketing efforts
“We look for ways to make Realtime conferences into a playground where we can experiment with emerging tools and platforms to share information, connect with people and build our brands,” said Tonia Ries, Founder and Host, The Realtime Report. “The Halo Group’s survey focused on realtime marketing efforts, used a realtime marketing tool and provided attendees with realtime results—a perfect example of a brand fully immersing themselves in emerging technology.”
# # #
For full survey questions and results, please click here.
Linda Passante, CEO and Co-Founder of The Halo Group was featured in the Business section of The New York Post on Sunday, April 24, 2011.
The article entitled "Women get the biz...female-owned firms are thriving" highlighted Linda as part of the fastest-growing segment of businesses -- companies owned by women. The reporter called The Halo Group a "business more than just part of a trend. It's actually a leader, an exception in New York businesses."
To read the full article: online: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/women_get_the_biz_lebal6vOlzp8qX6kwVaEzN#ixzz1KYO1Mk7fA
“It’s Mountain Time” at Mount Airy Casino Resort Brings the Spirit of the Outdoors In
NEW YORK, April 11, 2011 – The Halo Group, a New York based branding and marketing communications agency, launches today a multi-million dollar rebranding advertising campaign “It’s Mountain Time” for legendary Pocono escape Mount Airy Casino Resort, redefining the picturesque mountain retreat. Bringing the spirit of the brand to life, the new creative campaign features a surprise, humans interacting with local animals sharing the mountain getaway experience.
“In a category that is defined by ‘Jackpot Smiles’, Halo has created this campaign using local denizens to represent the wooded outdoor surroundings and bring its differential location to life,” said Mark Sutter, Chief Strategic Officer, The Halo Group. “The new campaign we created for Mount Airy allows the mountain retreat to find its own attitude and personality. ‘It’s Mountain Time’ is encouraging guests to get out there and have some fun!”
With the shift in brand messaging from Mount Airy’s pre-existing image, the new campaign features charming, local animals all intended to bring a smile to the viewer. To accomplish the animals incorporated in the ads, a special effects mixture of puppeteers and animatronics were used rather than real live animals. The photography highlights the smart design of the resort and heightened energy of the casino and nightlife.
The series of ads feature a couple of foxes enjoying the casino nightlife and a black bear awaking from his hotel hibernation. In one television spot, a man at the roulette table is unsure if he should let his bet ride, until he notices a squirrel going all in with his pile of acorns.
You can collect your nuts and save them for another day...or you can grow a pair and let them ride. It’s Mountain Time. Mount Airy Casino Resort.
"Mount Airy, nestled in 12,000 wooded acres, is unique because it offers an entirely different experience from Atlantic City and the other local casinos. Mount Airy owns the Poconos and the new campaign leverages this valuable equity,” said Linda Passante, CEO, Co-Founder of The Halo Group. “Mount Airy is more than a casino. It’s more than a resort. It’s a unique destination that allows guests to go a short distance for an abundance of outdoor activities in a mountain getaway.”
The new $5.6 million campaign is designed to connect with consumers, reaching a broader audience across several media channels: television, radio, consumer print publications (national golf and entertainment magazines, casino daily newspapers), outdoor, transit (bus and train), digital geo-targeted banners and in the Northern New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania and New York City metro region. The “It’s Mountain Time” creative look and feel incorporating regional animals such as raccoons, bears and deer and mountain images will also be integrated into all on-site and direct mail collateral. Ads featuring resort spa and golf scenarios will break later in Spring/Summer 2011.
Agency Credits:
- Rick Midler, Creative Director, The Halo Group
- Tim Goodwin, Director/Producer, The Halo Group
- Stu Garrett, Senior Creative Director, The Halo Group
Production Credits:
- Celebrity Photographer Jeff Sciortino, Sciortino Photography
- Film Director Andrews Jenkins
- Deer and fox Special Effects, Barbara Muehleib
- Animatronic bear and Puppeteer, Matt Brady
- Squirrel and wolf Special Effects, AnimatronicFX puppeteer’s Dave Nelson and Norman Tempia
- Original rock score, Musician/Guitarist Sheldon Rifkowitz
To view high-resolution campaign images and TV/radio spots, as well as get a “Behind-the-Scenes” glance at the making of the new ad campaign, please visit: http://thehalogroup.net/news/2011-mountairy-spring-campaign/index.html.
# # #
Legendary Mount Airy Casino Resort Communications Campaign - Redefining the Casino Experience
NEW YORK, December 9, 2010 – With the launch of an integrated communications campaign, Mount Airy Casino Resort, the renowned romantic escape in the Pocono Mountains, announced the addition of table gaming to its casino allowing the resort to compete directly with Atlantic City, Connecticut and local casinos. In an increasingly competitive Northeast gaming market the new 10 million dollar campaign, created by New York-based branding and marketing communications agency, The Halo Group, introduced the brand’s casino get-away experience in a distinctive way that uses everything Mount Airy and the surrounding Poconos area has to offer, from skiing to dining to gaming.
“When The Halo Group won the Mount Airy Casino Resort business we knew we had a challenge ahead of ourselves. In order for this casino resort to separate themselves from the other casino resorts in the Northeast region, they needed to stand for something. We decided that we weren’t selling a casino, or a resort, but an adult playground with an unlimited amount of ways to enjoy life. Mount Airy needed to believe in something…so we created their mantra, “We Believe in Fun. Above All Else,” said Linda Passante, CEO, Co-Founder of The Halo Group.
The innovative themes combine the thrill of the brand new hotel and casino, world-class dining, entertainment, and a host of year-round outdoor activities. They were inspired by the groovy, retro-hip posters of the ‘60s and carry simple headlines such as: “It’s All Fun And Games,” “Live More Frequently” and “Your Table Is Ready.”
The campaign is designed to connect with consumers in several media channels: print, television, radio, outdoor, transit, taxi, and online media in the Northern New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania and New York metro region. In three months, the resort with all of its amenities has already witnessed a record increase in revenues from regional travelers.
“We’ve created an identifiable signature. Upon first look the viewer gets a sense that this is a fun place to visit. And it very quickly became shorthand for the brand. Doing this kind of work for great clients is fun. Above all else,” said Passante.
To view high-resolution out of home and print campaign images, as well as TV and radio spots, please visit http://thehalogroup.net/mountairy/funaboveallelse.cfm.
# # #
NEW YORK, June 28, 2010 – The Halo Group, a branding and marketing communications agency announced today that it has been named Agency of Record by Liebherr Refrigeration North America, the world’s largest premium refrigeration manufacturer, headquartered in Germany.
“What drew us to The Halo Group was their proven track record of providing bottom-line results for their clients,” said Thorsten Platt, Vice President of Liebherr Refrigeration North America. “We are excited to work with Halo as our strategic communications partner as we establish Liebherr as a top-of-the-line brand in the competitive U.S. market. By displaying an excellent understanding of our business, they proved they could provide us with all the integrated marketing capabilities we were looking for.”
With over 50 years experience in cooling technology in the appliance industry, Liebherr sets the pace with continuous product innovation, European styling and a proactive environmental approach to responsible manufacturing. Liebherr offers a wide range of ENERGY STAR rated built-in, freestanding and fully integrated refrigerators to meet the needs of their U.S. and Canadian consumers, complimented by an extensive selection of wine and humidor cigar storage units.
Halo will create an integrated North American marketing communications campaign to build brand awareness amongst key trade and consumer audiences. The plan will focus on advertising, public relations, social media, promotions and event disciplines.
“Liebherr has successfully established their brand in Europe but is relatively unknown in the U.S.,” said Linda Passante, CEO of The Halo Group. “We are extremely honored Liebherr came to Halo as they continue to build brand awareness, bringing fresh, European design to the North American marketplace.”
About Liebherr
Driven by innovation and characterized by sophisticated, elegant design, Germany-based Liebherr Corporation brings the best of Europe to the refrigeration category in North America. Visit www.liebherr-appliances.com to view Liebherr’s full product line of freestanding, built-in and fully integrated refrigeration and wine storage units.
