Zero-G Creative

Success Story: The Reel Helper™

Nov 13 2007

Back in 2003, Carey Johnston had a really lousy Christmas. Well, not so much the Christmas part as the decorating part. The year before he’d gotten a whole lot of those extra-dangly icicle lights and the family was excited about putting them up again. But when Carey unpacked his decorations, he found his icicle lights were a hopelessly tangled mess. At some point in the hours of untangling, a light came on… Not on his house of course, those lights were still knotted and useless; but in his head.

Carey had an idea for a way to pack, store and unpack holiday lights so they’d NEVER get tangled. And then decorating for Christmas could actually be fun, instead of the profanity-laced marathon of frustration that many people experience.

So he build a prototype and it worked. He formed a company and filed for a patent. And finally, this year, he found investors and hired consultants to help him figure out manufacturing, sales and operations. His product was set to launch in November in time for the holidays, but as of August he didn’t even have a name for it.

That’s where we came in. Carey and his team needed a partner that could provide them with a full-service solution. Everything from naming to logos, e-commerce and more… And everything needed to be done in less than 3 months. Our scope of work included the following:

• Consulting on the name of the product
• Designing the logo
• Writing the marketing copy for the web site and sales materials
• Photography for marketing materials
• Designing business cards, stationery and sales collateral
• Designing the Reel Helper packaging and instruction sheets
• Designing a web site with flash animation and e-commerce
• Web hosting, with SSL security for e-commerce
• Providing a payment gateway and merchant services through our partners at Authorize.net
• Search Engine Optimization
• Production of two 30 second commercials to air on TV in two markets

Despite the large scope and short timeline, we met all our goals and had everything ready in time for the big product launch this week.

Above is a sample of some of the work we did for the Reel Helper™. The web site is lnow live at ReelHelper.com and they are taking orders through the online store. The first commercial is available for viewing on the web site as well.

This was a terrific project to work on for everyone on our team and we’re grateful to Carey and his group for giving us such a wonderful opportunity. Carey had nice things to say about us as well:

“When we started this process, we didn’t have anything except our invention. Zero-G amazed us with the range of services they were able to offer from naming our product to logo design, collateral, web design, e-commerce, merchant services and more. They even produced our TV commercials. Looking at the quality and professionalism of what they’ve done for us, no one would ever guess that it all came together in less than three months. Zero-G was instrumental in helping us turn our invention into a product in time for the holidays.” – Carey Johnston

Carey also wants us to mention that anyone who decorates for the holidays will want a Reel Helper™ for their home. It’s a bargain at only $19.95 and makes a great gift for the holidays. I’ve seen this product in action and trust me, it really works!

Published by Erik Wolf under Success Stories