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WHAT WE’VE DONE

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Case Studies

For over 25 years, The Star Group has been in the business of Creating Business™ for our clients…. and these are some of their stories. 

Featured Case Studies:

The Client: 360 Cookware
The Challenge: Increase web traffic, enhance search engine relevancy and drive e-commerce sales by reworking the entire site of the greenest cookware on the planet.

See Synegration™ in action for 360 Cookware –

Other Cookware Green With Envy 

360 Cookware is top-of-the-line stainless steel cookware made in America in the country’s greenest cookware manufacturing facility. Great for traditional cooking methods, it also offers the option to cook with vapor technology. The specially designed lid creates a floating vapor seal that surrounds food with intense heat, locking in vitamins, moisture and flavor without added oil, fat or excess water. Vapor technology has been sold through trade shows for more than 40 years and enjoys a devoted following.

Our primary objectives were to increase traffic, drive e-commerce sales of cookware, rework their site for usability and convenience, and enhance their search engine relevancy.

The Client: The National Museum of American Jewish History
The Challenge: Build the buzz and generate interest from near and far about the only museum in the US dedicated solely to telling the comprehensive story of Jews since their arrival in America over 350 years ago.
See Synegration™ in action for The National Museum of American Jewish History –

A Night at the Museum

As the National Museum of American Jewish History was building its new $150 million, 100,000-square-foot home in the heart of Philadelphia’s historic Independence Mall, Star Group focused its efforts on building buzz for the much anticipated opening. Why the anticipation? NMAJH is the only museum in the nation dedicated solely to telling the comprehensive story of Jews since their arrival in America in 1654.

Like its historic neighbors, NMAJH, a Smithsonian affiliate, highlights the quintessential immigrant story, exploring such universal themes as the challenges and opportunities of freedom, democracy, civil rights and assimilation. A testament to what all free people can accomplish, for themselves and society at large, NMAJH is a place for all Americans to explore.

The Client: Pilot Freight Services
The Challenge: Change the perceptions of a brand from “just an air-freight carrier” to “your full-service logistics partner.”
See Synegration™ in action for Pilot Freight Services.  –

Moving Up in the World

Established in 1970, Pilot is the largest privately held freight forwarder, having originated in air transport, and expanded over the years to become inter-modal. Fortunately, the company has experienced record growth over the last ten years. But as economic conditions continued to constrict, and competition in the freight market heated up, in 2009 Pilot faced its first year of financial decline.

As Pilot forged ahead, the purpose of this project was to carve a stronger brand value proposition for Pilot (beyond air). To do this meant a shift in perceptions from the commodity business of “moving stuff” from Point A to Point B (e.g., Pilot as vendor) to a higher-level attitudinal space that is typically highly service-oriented (e.g., Pilot as partner). 

The Client: City of Philadelphia Department of Revenue
The Challenge: Help the City of Philadelphia collect $30 million in back taxes in just 54 days.
See Synegration™ in action for the City of Philadelphia Department of Revenue –

Show Me the Money

With the nation and the world in the grips of one of the worst economic downturns in decades, Philadelphia’s Revenue Department was set to take aggressive action to help the City weather its own tough times—launching its first tax amnesty program in decades. In fact, both the City and its School District were owed millions of dollars in unpaid tax principal, putting the City in budget crisis and critical city services in danger of being suspended or shut down indefinitely. In October 2009, the Philadelphia City Council approved an ordinance which would allow a 54-day window of opportunity for tax delinquents to make good with the city by offering Philadelphia residents, workers, and businesses owing back-taxes the chance to have all penalties waived and to pay only half the interest owed. Star Group was selected from among four competing agencies for the project.

The Client: University of the Sciences
The Challenge: To create a repositioning, graphic identity, and comprehensive communications campaign to drive home the rich variety of educational experiences and career opportunities students can discover there.
See Synegration™ in action for University of the Sciences..  –

Down To A Science

Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, North America’s first College of Pharmacy, was founded in 1821. In 1997, the College reached university status and, in 1998, changed its name to “University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.” But by 2010, with five colleges and broadened ambitions, the University had already outgrown this localized name (“in Philadelphia” was dropped) and was ready for a repositioning aligned with its expanding and distinctive educational opportunities for students seeking to build their futures at the place where healthcare and science converge.

Impressed with Star Group’s experience in branding and messaging, University of the Sciences challenged us to create a repositioning, graphic identity, and comprehensive communications campaign to drive home the rich variety of educational experiences and career opportunities students can discover there.

The Client: Delaware Lottery
The Challenge: To create a marketing communications campaign to increase sales of Instant Games for the summer of 2010.
See Synegration™ in action for Delaware Lottery –

Go Play

Summertime is synonymous with footloose fun and carefree activity. When Star Group was asked to create a marketing communications campaign to increase sales of Instant Games for the summer of 2010, we wanted to tap into this sentiment. But we also saw an opportunity to reach the Lottery’s target demographic, 18-25 year olds, by tying into the Lottery’s Annual Summer Road Trip program. Because Instant Games are easy-to-play, engaging and offer instant gratification, they are an ideal point of entry for this younger demographic. And because the games can go anywhere and be played any time, they’re the perfect out and about summertime companion.

The Client: Virtua Woman
The Challenge: Build a robust online community for South Jersey women that would be positioned as a premier “go to” destination for women’s health and wellness needs.
See Synegration™ in action for Virtua Woman –

Beyond the Baby 

By delivering over 7,000 babies annually, Virtua has earned a long-standing reputation as the premiere location in the Southern New Jersey region for maternity care.  Yet, as popular as Virtua had become with expectant mothers, the brand needed to secure a more enduring relationship with these women post-delivery. 

Star Group worked with Virtua representatives to develop and implement a robust online community for South Jersey women that would be positioned as a premier “go to” destination for women’s health and wellness needs. This online community—branded Virtua Woman—proved to be a critical bridge that carried new moms into an ongoing relationship with the Virtua brand. Now women think of Virtua as more than just a place for just having babies.

My Moka Pot Coffee Guide

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My Moka Pot Coffee Guide is designed to provide the maximum amount of coffee out of a single pot by using the right coffee blend.

One of the things that I really like about this coffee brewer is that it can be used for a variety of purposes, from espresso to cappuccino.

Here are some tips to make sure that you get the most out of your Moka Pot Coffee Brewer.

First of all, make sure that you have chosen a good coffee blend. A lot of people use the same blend every day.

These blends are usually not very good, and if you are like me, you don’t want to go through the hassle of going through several different blends in order to choose the best one.

That’s why I recommend starting with the Moka Pot Coffee Guide. In this guide, you can choose from five different types of coffee.

I think that the five types are the best for using the Moka Pot Coffee Brewer because these coffee blends offer enough coffee to help you get a full and deep roast, which is what you need.

Roasting is very important when using a coffee maker. If you are going to have an espresso at home, the roasting process is the same. For mor information on moka pots click here.

In fact, most people don’t even bother to roast the beans after they get them from the mill. Most roasters will roast the beans the night before and let them rest overnight.

However, there are some people who don’t like to leave the beans in the water too long, and instead prefer to do a quick rinse of the beans prior to brewing.

By using a coffee guide, you can avoid this if you want to brew coffee at home.

You will also want to choose a coffee blend that has a low water temperature.

Thisis because it will stay hot longer than a drink that has a higher water temperature.

That’s why I recommend starting with the low temperature blend. There is really no need to waste your money on high temperature coffee.

Once you find the low temperature blend, you’ll want to measure the water so that you can match the number of cups you’re going to need for your various uses.

This will also make sure that you use less water and get a better extraction of the coffee.

By following these guidelines, you will quickly get the most out of your Moka Pot Coffee.

For the best tasting coffee, get a coffee guide, as well as coffee machines that have a wide array of settings.

Now, for the final word: never get more than two servings from a single serving of coffee. The reason for this is that coffee is generally heavy and you will not feel the full effects until you drink four or five cups.

Of course, if you don’t mind drinking a little extra caffeine and find it to be enjoyable, then go ahead and drink a lot of coffee. Just remember to stop right before you get sick!

These are just a few of the many guidelines that I used to get the most out of my Moka Pot Coffee.

SIMPLE TIPS TO HELP YOU IN STARTING YOUR OWN FISH FARMING BUSINESS

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Fish is becoming very popular nowadays, as a source of protein and also as a pet. People are increasingly shifting their business towards fish farming. This business is generating a high amount of revenue with little investment. The best thing about having a lot of fish is, you could use your kitchen waste to feed the fish and if you have a kitchen garden, you can use the fish waste as fertilizer.

If you are new to fishing business, it will be good if you start small and gather experience as you progress. You should have adequate knowledge in this field. Only then will you be able to flourish the business in the long run. Managing a business requires you to have management and administrative skills. Adding to it, you will not have a boss to guide you through. So you will pretty much be on your own.

  1. Gain Knowledge

To start your own fishing business, you must know everything about it. Fishing includes everything, from fish-farming activity to fish farms and knowledge about what causes white fungus on pitbull pleco. Learning about fish farms will help you in making informed decisions. For this purpose you can visit http://www.fishxperts.com. Internet is a pool of knowledge.

Read articles, watch YouTube videos and ask people on Quora. Just know what you want and learn how other people have made it possible. Visit local fish farms and interact with experience people. Take a part-time job at a local fishery to get first-hand experience in this field.

  1. Set your Goals

Setting your goals before starting the business, is the right process to follow. You should know which field you are pursuing, what you want to produce, in what amount, how many people you will need, how much capital will be required and how much profit to expect by the end.

Preparing a business plan is the right thing to do. It allows you to incorporate the business, get necessary documents, get a license, get funding from banks and investors, choose the business location and get environmental clearance.

  1. Analyze your Market

Analyzing the market means determining your audience, what they want, knowledge about your competitors, types of fish that are profitable, emergency contacts and scale of operations. So spent some time in gaining knowledge about the field you are getting into.

  1. Setup your Business

If you don’t have enough funds, you can start small by setting up a pond in your own backyard or raise fish in a fish tank. You can easily get all the necessary supplies from a wholesale market. If you already have enough contacts who would surely buy from you, you can buy a tank big enough to start producing.

  1. Backyard Fishing

Setting up a pond in the backyard is not a difficult task. Just make sure that you have enough room for the production you want. You may need to process the pond water and feed your fish with proper diet.

  1. Keep Going

Fish farming business is obviously going to be a bumpy road. But don’t let those bumps stir your determination in making the business flourish. Stick to your values and keep your goals clear in your mind. Take help of experience people when you are in a dilemma and don’t let others let you down.

YouTube Time Stamp For Brands, Because “Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That”

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How brands can take advantage of the new YouTube Time Stamp feature for targeted messaging and fostering social engagement.

In situations when a GIF or Vine just isn’t enough to fully convey the context of your brand’s message, you’d likely take the next logical step and include video. Problem being, that you usually only want to share a specific part of the video before your target audience loses interest, believes you’re crazy or responds with the dreaded “tl;dr”. If you were web savvy you could have included the #t=0h0m0s coding at the end of your YouTube link so your video started right where you wanted, but let’s be honest “Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That”

YouTube has recently and quietly introduced what I am coining as the “Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That” button. Now, instead of adding the time stamp coding to your link, you can simply click the “checkbox” and generate a link to the video starting it at the point where you want it. This is a good move for YouTube to help foster additional social sharing and make YouTube clips as ubiquitous as GIFs.

This should be enticing for brand managers, as it gives the freedom to show and express ideas via YouTube by cutting the through the fluff and sending people directly to the intended point of interest. Brands could also use this for directed messaging, allowing the use of one video with multiple responses, rather than creating a number of videos, cutting down on expense and increasing overall views. By linking users directly to the content they’re looking for, brands can drive views on one particular video, increasing the potential for engagement without diluting the potential view count.

Check the screenshot out below and try out the “Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That” button out today! (Feel free to shoot us a link of what you’re sharing in the comments section below)

“Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That”

If Print Is Dead, Then How Is It Serving Meals?

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With the rise of digital, social, niche, and hyper-local content and reporting, it’s true that “traditional” print publications don’t hold the same command as we’ve known them to have for the past 400 or so years. But to paraphrase the oft used quote “the report of its death was an exaggeration.” 

It seems that for the past five years, ongoing reports of the “death of print media” have made people wonder whether their local paperboy would be going the way of the dodo. With the rise of digital, social, niche, and hyper-local content and reporting, it’s true that “traditional” print publications don’t hold the same command as we’ve known them to have for the past 400 or so years. But to paraphrase the oft used quote “the report of its death was an exaggeration.” 

There’s no better example than the recent news that, going against the grain of print-to-digital transitions, AllRecipes.com is launching a print magazine starting in November. This version of the media crossover may be different than the current norm, but what it highlights isn’t so much a trend, as an acknowledgment that smart brands know that you can’t win through one channel alone. 

Print is not dead. TV is not dead. Yes, mobile is growing and has helped chip away at traditional mediums…you’d be a fool to ignore it. Here’s a secret though…even mobile is not a magic bullet for reaching your audience. No real-life consumer solely uses one medium, be it mobile, print, TV, web, etc. The lesson that marketers can learn from Meredith Corp. (who have owned AllRecipes.com since January, 2012) is that constant testing and adaptation is necessary, and sometimes the results will point you in a direction that looks backwards.

I can only imagine the strategy sessions pushing for digital-only publishing methods and balking at the mere suggestion of printing. Of course, time will tell if this is a success. In the meantime, established news publications have also recently been in flux, with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos buying the Washington Post, and just last year Newsweek abandoning their print version to go all digital. Even with these shifts and adaptations, we’re a far way off from living in a world without print.

A fully-realized marketing strategy needs to mirror what’s happening in the real world. As new channels emerge, it’s critical to incorporate them into the mix, but it’s just as important to not leave traditional platforms by the wayside. Content needs to connect with your audience through a variety of methods. Where you choose to put the emphasis is another decision altogether…

Digital Overload: Could there be TMI?

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With the proliferation of smartphones and mobile devices, we all recognize that shoppers can now get vast amounts of information wherever they are, whenever they want it. Now, as marketers, we can spend our work hours and brain cells on how to effectively navigate this complex online landscape.

But we at ShopScape suspect that few of us have stopped to consider the possible side effects of so much information, especially for (let’s face it) items with less than earth-shaking importance. Sure, you want lots of input for an expensive new car purchase or when moving up to a cutting edge piece of technology. But what about an everyday “medium-ticket” purchase like a set of bedsheets?

In the old days, a shopper would have checked the options at a local department store, thought about them for a bit, maybe looked at other sets at another store or two, and finally made a purchase. Now it’s second nature to check the web, research the price at different stores, read thread count reviews, check to see if the sheets are on sale anywhere, scan the bar code in the store to see where else they’re sold, and Google coupon codes, etc. Just writing that sentence was exhausting—which leads us to wonder if too much information may sometimes have a counter-effect, confusing or turning off the very customers we’ve sought to engage.

What we think it means:  Information fatigue could offer an opportunity to stand out by making life easier for your customers. For example, by simplifying product selection or by giving them all the product information they want (including reviews and ratings) right on your site or in your store—so they don’t feel the need for extensive research elsewhere.