CEO Gini Graham Scott got her start in marketing and advertising research by working for Foote, Cone & Belding as a project director, creating interview guides, and writing research reports on major consumer brands.
More recently, she has developed marketing and research campaigns for her own books and films, and for Publishers, Agents and Films — a service that connects writers to publishers, agents, the film industry, and venture capitalists and angel investors. She also developed ad campaigns for new products for graduate seminars in Marketing and Public Relations.
Here is a summary of these major campaigns.
This has been a successful company for 11 years and began as Publishers and Agents. It gained major success after being featured in articles in the Wall Street Journal and Contra Costa Times. It was sold from 2008-2013 to new owners, who closed the business after being unable to repeat Scott’s success formula, and since December 2014, Scott has rebuilt the business as Publishers, Agents and Films.
Over the years, the company helped over 1000 clients, has testimonials from over 260 writers, and is successful once again, though Scottplans to sell the company again, since she doesn’t want to run what could become an international company expanding to other industries. However, Scott may remain involved as the Creative Director, at the new owners’ discretion.
The Heliflyer
This began as a marketing campaign for an imaginary product in an MBA marketing class. But the campaign and website proved so real that some people wanted to book services, and a company with carts for helicopters brought in its lawyers to insist on and pay for a name change from its original name, afraid of the competition.
The campaign has since inspired a film script for a murder mystery thriller, and the website is still up.
Pet Speaker
This began as a project for a PR class to develop an ad plan and sample ads for the campaign. The basic idea of the product was that an embedded sound chip and software could translate the sounds of a dog or cat into words to indicate what they were thinking, saying, feeling, and more.
The chip could be put on the pet in various forms — a collar, pet tag, belt, chain, leash, or clip-on device. Then, the pet’s words could be amplified through a small wireless receiver, recorder, or speaker in a room which everyone can hear or on a computer.
At one time there was a Pet Speaker website, and the campaign seemed so real that several angel investors expressed interest and a few prospective retail buyers wanted to place orders for the product when it was released. The material for the campaign is available on request.
American Beauty Perfection Lima Beans
This began as a project for an advertising graduate seminar and involved creating an ad plan, copy, and research design. It included an executive summary, overview, situation analysis, objectives, message strategy, execution, evaluation, several print ads, recipes with lima beans, TV story board, and even a lima bean song. The material for this campaign is also available on request.