STIR is a rich blend of marketing insights and creativity, envisioned by seasoned veteran Karen Carbone Kraut.
Spark your brand with unexpected thinking.
Engage audiences’ hearts and minds everywhere.
Explore your brand’s potential with us.
Uncover our rich experience and the possibility of a one-of-a-kind STRATEGY.
INSIGHT
STIR reveals your customers' personality and buying patterns through insightful planning -- discovering both broad sweeping patterns and nuanced particulars. From there, we give proper voice to your brand so your customers will respond with devotion. Through careful assessment, innovative ideation and flawless execution, we deliver on STRATEGY.
STIR specialties include:
* Consumer Insights
* Business Insights
* Customer Segmentation
* Brand Strategy
* Brand Architecture
* Brand Positioning
* Customer Marketing Strategies
* Marketing Communications
* Creative Concepting and Execution
EXPERTISE
STIR is the vision of Karen Carbone Kraut: a seasoned marketer who brings an outstanding collection of experience and expertise to brand development -- including work for such robust retailers as Best Buy and Target. In the dance of client relationships, she leads in shaping initiatives for all sizes of companies -- (because every brand has customers, right?) -- all in support of a smart STRATEGY.STIR expertise includes:
* Working on both sides of the aisle (client and agency)
* Engaging with both B-to-C and B-to-B clients
* Providing senoir leadership as well as executing strategic plans
* Leading consumer discussions and dialogues
* Uncovering the core idea while keeping the customer's heart and mind the focus
* Analyzing measurable results
Case Study: Customer Segmentation
When Best Buy needed to finish the second half of their customer centricity segmentation, they got a woman on the case. Maybe that's because the remaining customers were mainly women. Karen led this project where she pulled together quantitative findings, customer behavior and transactional data, then fielded qualitative discussions with women to understand why they did what they did. The result: four additional customer segments built around what mattered most to these women and, in turn, what drove their behavior.
Case Study: Brand Positioning
How do you position a completely new health care concept to both consumers and businesses? Talk to them and figure out what they think works. By interviewing company leaders, assessing the competition in the marketplace and discussing strengths with partners, several brand position "themes" were created. Next, those themes were tested with the intended audience for this new company - both employees and HR executives - to get their feedback on what rang true, and what didn't. Secondary data was also used to find the key attitudes that define whether people would be interested in this new offering or not, helping target our audience and position options. Take this all into account, stir, and a brand position and personality was born. Now this new north star will help do everything from develop creative to hire employees.
Case Study: Customer Loyalty
How do you create loyalty for purchasing $10 CD's AND $3,000 televisions? Focus on the customer and give them what they want. Which in this case was a "thank you" and deals on cool products. Karen led the development of Best Buy's Reward Zone loyalty program, one of the most successful retail loyalty programs today. From creating the financial model to selling it in to senior leadership to managing the national rollout - from marketing, IT, retail and finance, she was involved in listening to what customers wanted, understanding what behavior the company wanted to drive and marrying the two into a mutually exclusive relationship. Which in this case was a points program that gave cash back for spending at Best Buy. And it worked. In it's first year across the country, the Reward Zone program drove a 23% incremental sales increase, 1/2 of the company's EVA growth for that year.
