Cooper House

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and executive director of the Ralph Ellison Foundation, a literary arts organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cooper House?

We needed someone to help us with our branding and marketing efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cooper House provides us with branding, marketing, and advertising services. Some of their tasks include logo design, WordPress web development, social media management, and coming up with marketing strategies.

They’re currently providing us with branding support. I run my ideas by them and they’re open to sharing their feedback and expertise.

What is the team composition?

We mainly work with Erin (Co-Founder & Creative Director) and Tim (Co-Founder & CEO).

How did you come to work with Cooper House?

They actually discovered our foundation and reached out to us to gauge our interest in support of the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent around $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in March 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The engagement of our website and social media presence has significantly improved since working with Cooper House. They’ve also increased participants for our programs and helped us successfully campaign for a grant.

How did Cooper House perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent on all levels of project management. Cooper House is extremely community-minded and responsive throughout our cooperation, and there’s not a time where a deadline isn’t met.

We typically communicate in person and through Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re very impressed with their ability to understand our organizational vision. Cooper House is able to look at our goals through a large prism which gives us more opportunities to accomplish what we need.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive feedback because Cooper House brought our foundation out of the darkness and into a place where I never imagined it would be.

They have the passion, expertise, and are willing to go above and beyond the monetary value that we could afford.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise allowing them to guide you through the areas of improvement within your organization. Trust their expertise and the end result will be better than what you could ever conceive.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing director for an auto dealership company based in Oklahoma and Texas. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cooper House?

We didn’t have cohesive branding, so we hired Cooper House to design and rebuild our brand. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, Cooper House helped us understand our brand palette. Then, they built two websites for us. One was a customer-facing retail site that allowed us to sell cars online. For this website, they worked with our other vendors and rewrote the code.

Meanwhile, the other website served as an internal brand guide. Their resources developed it from scratch. Using this site, Cooper House wouldn’t have to constantly manage us. Our employees could understand our marketing and branding efforts by simply logging in to that website. 

Beyond that, the team also helped us in scripting and writing content for commercials, radio ads, and billboards. While we hired another vendor to write the primary scripts, the Cooper House team assisted them to ensure that the message being conveyed was in line with our branding. They built both internal and external branding elements, too.

At present, they’re handling our social media campaigns. They’re redoing our efforts on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, among others. 

What is the team composition?

I work with 12 individuals from Cooper House. Erin (Co-Founder & Creative Director) serves as our project manager. 

How did you come to work with Cooper House?

Cooper House was referred to us by a person who used their branding services for a restaurant. At that time, we were in the process of vetting four other branding companies. We had organized interviews and scorecards. Our team lined them up and had internal discussions about each vendor. We ended up liking Cooper House; their blend of branding, technical knowledge, and process writing won us over. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our retainer for Cooper House is at $25,000 per month. This was supposed to drop to $15,000 per month, but the team has picked up additional roles to help us with more projects. As a result, we’ve decided not to change their retainer fee.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

On average, we have a 4% lead conversion rate — the industry average is 2% — and a 15% closing rate, which is also above the industry average. Moreover, the total viewership of our client-facing website has been increasing over time; the brand sentiment has also been increasing since August 2021.

Anecdotally, Cooper House’s services have been fun and personal. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the team remains flexible. If issues arise in one of our stores, they’re happy to work on them without complaints. 

How did Cooper House perform from a project management standpoint?

The team has delivered ahead of schedule on all but one project, which isn’t even their fault. Instead, it’s been caused by a positional change on our end. In other words, they hit deadlines. Even when we ask them to move things up a day, they’re willing to do it. 

Moreover, I have two weekly meetings with Cooper House. Every Monday, we go through what we’ll do for the week. We then have a Thursday or Friday meeting to summarize what we’ve accomplished during the week. I also have daily communication with them through phone conversations, emails, and text messages. 

Our communication has also been great. If something comes up, they call me immediately. When something’s amiss, they own it; they reach out to me and tell me what has happened. Overall, the collaboration is wonderful — we’ve truly enjoyed working with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Cooper House resources aren’t pleasers or yes-men. If we tell them to do something, they look at us in the face and tell us that it’s not the best way to go. In other words, they don’t aim to make us happy just so we pay them. They do their work efficiently while driving toward an end goal. 

For comparison, other people are too afraid to lose their contracts, so they won’t tell us what we need to hear. By contrast, Cooper House has been impressive because we can trust their feedback. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their financial apprehension is slightly a weak spot for them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When going into a meeting with Cooper House, do it with written objectives. If you’re attending brainstorming sessions, you don’t need to do this. However, if you’re driving at something, it’s better to write down your goals. That way, you can get the conversation going and stay on task. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and co-CEO of Prairie Surf Media. We are a film company that does content creation, and we very thoughtfully started with a film studio. We have five ClearSpan soundstages in the middle of downtown Oklahoma City where we can house other productions besides our own internal operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cooper House?

We hired Cooper House to do our branding. We already had a name for our company, but we needed an identity that was could creatively match it and bring it to life. We needed this brand to be equally attractive to the entertainment industry out in California but still fitting to the confines of Oklahoma.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started the project by putting together Pinterest boards. Using the inspirational pictures that we gathered, Erin (Co-Founder & Creative Director) helped us define our brand. We identified options for colors and font faces to use and studied how their vibe would match our identity. At the end of it, the Cooper House team was able to put together a brand guideline for us. 

They then designed our website, business cards, stationery, t-shirts, and everything that has to do with our brand according to it. They even came up with posters and materials for our events. Their team also helped us exemplify our brand through the colors of our buildings, our interior design, and our selection of furniture.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Erin and Tim (CEO), but the whole team has been involved as well. 

How did you come to work with Cooper House?

My co-CEO is friends with the folks at Cooper House. Oklahoma City is a small town, and there are only a few companies that provide branding services. We met up with all of those providers, but Erin was the only one who promised to create an experience as opposed to simply designing a logo. She understood what we wanted in such an authentic way, and what she brought to the table was just so much deeper and more innovative than what anybody else offered. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We kicked off the engagement in mid-2019. We’ve had our finalized brand for over a year now but we’re still working with them on some deliverables. We continue to use their services for additional creative assets.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

What Cooper House has done for us makes me love my brand. They’ve pulled all of our ideas together in a way that hits the mark and makes sense. All of the colors, font faces, and creative assets are aligned with the brand that we wanted to have.

We get compliments all the time from clients such as Disney, Netflix, HBO, Warner Bros., and ABC, and we receive positive feedback around the design and functionality of our website. It’s easy to make a pretty website, but it’s not easy to make a website that truly speaks to what we’re doing, and I think that Cooper House has done that really well. They’ve even made the site user-friendly so that our interns can manage it independently and with ease. 

How did Cooper House perform from a project management standpoint?

Their whole team has been immaculate with their work. Erin and I check in through text to see how things are going. What I like about her is that she’s very deadline-oriented. She always walks us through the process and never leans on friendship to get through the door.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The thing that really stands out to me is Erin’s incredible professionalism and creativity. She’s open to critique if it’s needed, and, as someone who works in the creative industry, I’m just in awe of her process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they could do things faster, but I understand that they’re serving other clients besides us and that we can’t rush their creative process. They’re spectacular with time management, so this is perhaps just me being impatient. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Lean into the process. It will be a lot of work, especially during the initial stages when you’re looking for inspiration, but you have to participate in order for Cooper House to capture and bring your vision to life.