Better Brands for a Better Human Condition
Purpose-Driven Branding and Digital Marketing Agency
A leader in brand performance marketing for national brands, DBA specializes in multi-location chains, franchise marketing, e-retail, products, healthcare, hospitals, food and finance with a special expertise in hyperlocal community and purpose-driven brands – including Chick-fil-A-fil-A, Papa Johns, Disney, Henry Ford Health System, U of M Health, Valley Children's Healthcare, Citizens Bank and Rocket Mortgage.
As a Lead Advertising Agency and Brand Consultant, DBA provides research, innovative brand strategy, media, platforms and creative content for emotional connections and measurement at every touchpoint of the consumer journey.
From fast food franchise chains and community banks to sustainable household products, wellness goods and hospitals, DBA brings industry specific consulting combined with specialized cross training from a wide range of leading e-retail brands for best practices.
DBA TURNS CUSTOMERS INTO CO-CREATORS OF BRANDS
DBA built a model around the central idea that the best way to lead a category is to create it. It starts with making more than marketing. We create branded movements. DBA brand strategy is founded on the concept that the future will be built by passion brands and the social movements that share their cause.
DBA quantifies emotional brand equity to understand the impact of digitally connected customers who become brand crusaders. Bringing in-house design, video and interactive productions, DBA creates award-winning advertising campaigns and social media content.
The DBA influencer engagement strategy accelerates client media budgets by engaging “raving fans” who will pay a premium and co-create the brand message – as irrational advocates for the brand.
DBA OFFICES:
- Detroit
- LA
- New York
- Dallas
- Chicago
- Nashville
- Naples
2 Languages
- English
- Mandarin
3 Timezones
- EST
- PST
- CST
headquarters
other locations
Focus
Portfolio
Consumers Energy, SVS Vision, Fathead, Michigan Medicine, Valley Children's Hospital, Barnes Jewish Hospital, Hungry Howie's, & Lake Trust Credit Union
The Science of a Healthcare Brand
TELLY AWARD-WINNING BRAND
Science is not soft or safe. At UC Health, science takes bold and aggressive steps, so the advertising needed to take bold steps as well. We launched the "Relentless" brand with a regional Super Bowl TV spot.
From aggressive camera moves to colorful bursts of animated biology and music that broke the mold of Midwest medical advertising, the UC Health campaign tested off the charts among the patient samples as it energized UC Health care teams.
RESULTS:
Not only did the campaign win over the Super Bowl viewers, The TV spot won a Telly Award and the brand preference scores increased.
Project with Chick-Fil-A
Building Raving Fans with Chick-fil-A
It all started with a platform for local engagement and social media influencers...
Consumers Energy - Hard Hat
Purpose-Based Digital & Social Marketing
BUILD A PASSION BRAND USING DIGITAL MEDIA – AND CHANGE YOUR WORLD
Do your fans fly your colors? Do your customers camp out the night before a grand opening? The future will be built by passion brands and the social movements that share their cause.
We've quantified emotional brand equity to understand the impact of digitally connected customers who become crusaders. They will pay a premium and co-create your message – as irrational advocates for your brand.
When a purpose-driven brand stands for values greater than its features and benefits, the best advertising comes from its passionate fans, who promote the brand better than it can promote itself.
Health Care Marketing Demo Reel
THE BOTTOM LINE IN HEALTH CARE MARKETING IS MEASURED IN LIVES
The patient is in charge of more healthcare decisions than ever before. We partner with health systems to guide patients in their search for care as well as providing branded experiences that will surprise and delight.
Our cross-functional expertise in retail marketing has been successfully used to implement leadership initiatives within the healthcare industry.
Our approach to healthcare marketing is patient-centered and collaborative, much like the health systems we serve. By bringing together all the disciplines, we can help the right patient find their way to the appropriate treatments. Effectively administered, patient communication can transform healthcare and save lives.
DOUBLED PATIENT VOLUME: Physician Referral Marketing
THE CHALLENGE: We started with the segment that influenced 64% of patient traffic – physicians. Physicians are busy, and want a simple way to refer patients. Patients are busy, and don't want to wait on hold to make a phone appointment.
THE SOLUTION: After developing a "click-to-refer" mobile ordering app to integrate with the hospital triage system – to help the referring physicians use the app in their daily routine.
THE RESULTS: The platform generated millions of dollars of trackable revenue from the first year of appointments generated. The mobile app doubled the number of referrals. The success of the digital experience platform was so profound, Henry Ford Health System is launching version 2.0 to allow patients to make their own self-referral through voice commands powered by Google Home and an Alexa Skill.
Game On Cancer
Millions of Earned Social Media Impressions
We reached out to the local sports influencers, Herman Moore and the Detroit Lions, firing up the 1.8M social followers.
$15 Million in Donations
We launched with a Super Bowl TV spot, sending the Detroit Lions to the Super Bowl for the first time! The TV spot won an Emmy Award and was instrumental in raising $15M for cancer care at Henry Ford Health System.
Consumers Energy - Frank
Hungry Howie's - Two Two
Hungry Howie's - Fire
Hungry Howie's - The Power of Love, Hope & Pizza
Valley Children's Hospital - Fernando
Flagstar - Craftsmen
Michigan Office of Highway and Safety Patrol - Excuses
SVS Vision - Grandma
Project with University of Michigan
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Reviews
the project
Advertising & Marketing for Roofing Company
"DBA is very involved in our company and truly cares about the outcome of the project."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
As the founder of Schoenherr Roofing, I have been building the business since 1995. Our business is built on quality service. Our roofs are guaranteed for the life of the owner and life of the second owner. We have been in business for 26 years, serving the good people of Macomb and Oakland Counties.
For what projects/services did your company hire Daniel Brian Advertising?
Schoenherr roofing hired Daniel Brian Advertising to grow our roof replacement business. DBA introduced a platform called PostMonster which we used to launch an advertising campaign and track all our analytics and data as well as improve the quality and frequency of our social postings.
We came in with aggressive expansion goals – to hit southeast Michigan and get massive return on investment. Those goals were all achieved within one year.
How did you select this vendor?
DBA’s mission statement of ‘Better Brands for a Better Human Condition’ really stood out to us because it showed that they were going to put in the time and effort it took to create a better brand for our company. You could tell that DBA actually cared about our company and wanted to help us expand our brand and our mission to our customers.
Describe the scope of their work in detail.
We started by meeting with the DBA team to establish our values and the goals we wanted to achieve in the upcoming year. DBA created a plan in order for us to achieve those goals, which included a platform named PostMonster.
On PostMonster the team set us up with our own exclusive package that fit all our marketing needs which included :
- PostMonster Social Media Publishing Calendar
- SEO Listing Sync | Pro with Yext
- Ad Campaign with Advanced Reporting Dashboard
- ActiveCampaign CRM Database
- Strategic & Creative Consulting
After this was done our ads started running and we started seeing results within the first couple of months.
What was the team composition?
We had an account executive who walked us through all the steps to set up our account and made sure our project was running smoothly. The creative team supported us with advertising concepts and executions. We also had a digital media buyer and tech expert who assisted with the setup and activation of all our products and accounts.
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
We were able to triple sales last year, associating more than a 20:1 Return on Ad Spend in 2021. We finally have a Cost Per Acquisition model for growth. We meet multiple times a month with the DBA team to discuss where we are at as a company and what we can improve and change.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Working with DBA has been very effective, any time we have questions the team is willing to meet and answer or talk through any problems we might be having. We had a designated account executive who handled the workflow and distributed it accordingly.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
DBA is very involved in our company and truly cares about the outcome of the project. In the initial meeting stages DBA set up consistent meetings with us to learn about our values and how we operate as a company and wanted to learn about us as people and not just a business.
Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?
Not at this point.
the project
Advertising & Marketing for Regional Pizza Chain
“DBA does a great job building brands that result in increased sales.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
The organization is Hungry Howie’s Pizza, a regional pizza chain. We operate in 21 states and 565 stores. I’m the EVP of marketing, with oversight of all facets of our marketing and advertising.
What challenge were you trying to address with Daniel Brian Advertising?
Daniel Brian Advertising (DBA) was our full-service advertising agency of record.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They assisted us with traditional and digital advertising. They did a lot of brand work for us to help define the Hungry Howie’s brand. We’re known for flavored crust pizza, so they updated our logo to include Flavored Crust Pizza.
They developed a full host of broadcast support materials, print support materials, and then, prior to leaving, digital materials.
What is the team composition?
When we worked with DBA, it was a small–mid-sized agency. They probably had a staff of about 35 people within all of the various disciplines: account, creative, media, and strategic services.
How did you come to work with Daniel Brian Advertising?
I’ve been with my company for about nine-and-a-half years, so I inherited DBA when I joined as EVP of marketing. I’ll give them accolades because normally, when a new marketing person comes in, you change agencies. However, I did a full assessment of DBA, and I thought they were the right agency for our brand at that time. They were very capable and qualified.
What is the status of this engagement?
I believe the relationship began in 2009; it was kicked off with a campaign in the fourth quarter. Our work together ended in the second quarter of 2017.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Sales is the ultimate parameter when you operate in any retail business. DBA helped to contribute to many quarters of increased growth, and we saw increasing sales for the entire time that we worked with them.
We also look at key metrics through research; we use NPD CREST’s syndicated research to understand how we’re doing as compared to competitive sets. With DBA, we always did very well in most of the advertising measurements, such as awareness and persuasion. DBA does a great job building brands that result in increased sales.
How did Daniel Brian Advertising perform from a project management standpoint?
They were always on time and budget with sales-building ideas. Back then, our communication was mostly email, phone, and face-to-face because they were local in our trading area. I manage our agencies by being part of the process, and they were always open to that. It was easy to have meetings at either of our offices.
One of the great things about working with DBA is the hands-on ownership. Dan (Owner, CEO & Chief Strategy Officer) gets very involved with his clients, so we had a good working relationship with Dan and Matt (Principal, EVP & Creative Director). I enjoyed working with both of them tremendously; they’re gifted and talented. The relationship was one of mutual respect and trust.
What did you find most impressive about them?
There were many impressive things. I was always very impressed with their creativity. For example, they helped execute a promotion in conjunction with the National Breast Cancer Foundation that they named Love, Hope, & Pizza. That has stood the test of time; we still support that campaign 10 years later, and we’ve donated over $3.5 million to the organization. Any great brand has an association with a great cause, and DBA was responsible for that campaign.
Are there any areas they could improve?
They were always a partner, and they grew as we grew.
Any advice for potential customers?
Follow their creative instincts. Dan manages the agency to maximize sales results.
the project
Branding Campaign for Healthcare Company
"They're a team of forward thinkers!"
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am the Director of Marketing and Brand Management of a $6.5 Billion health care system.
For what projects/services did your company hire Daniel Brian Advertising?
Brand Campaign
What were your goals for this project?
To enhance the health system brand in market
How did you select this vendor?
through an RFP process
Describe the scope of their work in detail.
Develop a multi-channel brand campaign
What was the team composition?
Worked with the owner and president of the agency along with senior staff team members
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
Working with this agency we have seen a significant lift in our brand preference.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
workflow was very effective. The agency team was available whenever we called on them.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
They're a team of forward thinkers!
Are there any areas for improvement?
none