Ztories People & Process

Owen Richard Kindig

Owen Richard Kindig, the founder and President of Ztories, has been producing persuasive media for colleges since 1983. He has worked with institutional and corporate presidents including Michele Tolela Myers, Dale Knobel, Michael Eisner, Les Wexner, George Bodenheimer, Paul H. Dixon, David L. Warren, William Brown, Tom Courtice, Ralph Denisco, and Marc H. Brodsky, as well as celebrities Hal Holbrook, Jack Hanna, Joe Theismann, Richard Lugar, Bob Dole, and E.G. Marshall. His college and non-profit successes have included major marketing or fundraising efforts for Denison, Cedarville University, Ohio Wesleyan, The American Institute of Physics, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, The United Way, The Lakeside Association, the Columbus Symphony, and the Columbus Zoo. Prior to focusing his practice on college and non-profit clients, Mr. Kindig has done national product rollouts, B2B marketing efforts and motivational staff-building efforts for The Drumstick Company, Nestle Ice Cream, Owens-Illinois, Nekoosa Packaging, Digital Equipment Corporation, Glencoe McGraw-Hill, and URS Corporation. His awards for persuasive film and video production include 27 Addy's, 6 Telly's, several CASE and Admissions Marketing Awards, and the Public Relations Society of America.

Owen has enjoyed long-standing relationships with all his clients because of his listening skills, creative energy, and consistent success in achieving customer communication goals. The guiding star of his branding success has always been authenticity: whether as a person or an institution, be true to core values, and be careful to define the brand as an authentic expression of those core values.

The "hedgehog concept" of Ztories is "The best interviews. Anywhere." Our trademark is an ability to let people tell their stories from a feeling of safety and with palpable sincerity. And this One Big Thing in turn has created a wellspring of authentic branding power for Ztories clients. The result has been institutional energy, clarity, and the forging of consensus around the stories that emerge.

(For a refreshing New York Times essay on Isaiah Berlin, who brought the hedgehog concept to the attention of Jim Collins and others, go here. Find the Collins book at Amazon or Alibris.)

Though most known for his cinematic work, Mr. Kindig has enjoyed a number of branding successes over the years, including the formulation of branding statements used by the Central Ohio Transit Authority, ("Everyone's Wheels), The Frank Gates Service Company ("Higher Ground", still in use after more than a decade), and Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, where he created the branding message for numerous textbook launches, including "It's Time for a Change", "Connect to the Real World", "Distance Learning that Works" and others.

For Digital Equipment Corporation, then the number two computer company in the world, he was selected to present the findings of a 100-member year-long think-tank convened by founder Ken Olsen for the purpose of envisioning the future of the computer industry, and strategizing how the company should engage that future. As the wordsmith/video director chosen to articulate that vision, Owen introduced the phrase "Your World is Ending" and employed E.G. Marshall as the spokesman. Kinetic images shot in New York City were intercut with studio shots of Marshall and ominous technology images from Friz Lang's Metropolis and other archive sources. The goal was to help persuade a hardware-focused sales force that the future of the company lay in software services. Sure enough, the expectations of the think-tank along with the prophetic words Owen had authored under their guidance came true. Both IBM and Digital saw their hardware business decline dramatically, and within six years IBM began its transition toward software services under Lou Gerstner. Five years later a vulnerable Digital was purchased by Compaq to become its software services arm.

As a branding consultant for VLM International, an Indiana telecom billing consultancy, Kindig created its first growth identity, "Come Jam with the Best" -- which saw the quadrupling of sales the next two years. Then after the telecom bubble burst and VLM was a survivor, Owen created "Versatility + Stability" with a Ben Franklin theme, again spurring rapid and sustained growth for the company.

As a strategic branding consultant for Minnesota State Colleges, in three separate campaigns across 13 years, Owen has conducted qualitative and quantitative research, created branding initiatives, written a marketing plan, and guided the creative process on each project from concept to completion. A full description from the client can be seen here. High points include the creation of new positioning statements, design of TV and radio spots and brochures, and creation of web movies in each of these cost-effective campaigns. Most importantly, he was able to facilitate consensus and unite the communications efforts of 5 campuses through a series of interviews with campus stakeholders and the delivery of exceptional communication tools.

Owen's organically-derived positoning-statements have also made an impact at Cedarville University, influencing much of the institutional positioning evolution for the last 25 years, including "Surprising..." "Real-world", "Hearts... Minds... Friends..." and most recently "Real People. Real Stories" which won Silver in the national Admissions Marketing Awards. For Ohio Wesleyan his coining of the phrase "Future Sight" became a campus positioning statement for a time, and the video he produced won CASE Gold. At Denison University, Michael Eisner (then Chairman of the Disney Company), publicly declared Owen's recruiting film to be "The finest college admissions video I have ever seen." Client testimonials about Cedarville and Denison efforts can be found here.

Ken Christie

As Senior Marketing and Brand Strategist for Ztories, Ken focuses on creating compelling brand experiences for clients, based on soundly developed strategies for growth, innovation, and competitive differentiation. Ken also successfully guides clients through e-business transformations, balancing strategy, brand-building and technology-based solutions. His 28 years of achieving results include marketing solutions for Cook Medical, General Mills, Lexmark, RCA, Cisco Systems, the National Association of Broadcasters, NCAA Basketball, Pioneer Electronics, and the Los Angeles Olympic Committee. He was formerly head of Interactive Services for a JWT affiliate, a regional director at marchFIRST, and has provided consulting for organizations as diverse as Eli Lilly, Herff Jones, hh gregg, Roche, Guidant, and the Indianapolis 500 Festival. Ken has directed the creation of more than 250 marketing solutions, has published over 40 articles, and has presented at 35 conferences. Among Ken's advice is always to be true to the brand, no matter what the customer touch point, no matter what size. They all leave an impression, generally one that can be measured, and almost always one that can affect the top and bottom line of an organization.

Ken firmly believes that a well-defined strategy that considers all touch points from admissions to commencement to alumni activity, when implemented properly, is the key to branding success for every educational institution. And the results impact selectivity, matriculation yield, retention, academic quality, faculty morale, athletic success, and alumni involvement, leading to the seeds of future success in a never-ending cycle.

Ken's higher education/nonprofit experience includes marketing communications strategies and collateral development for ITT Technical Institute, interactive applications for the University of Nebraska, Utah State University, and Summit School, strategy development and concepts for the Indianapolis Branding Initiative, branding and interactive development for Special Olympics Indiana and the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

Brent Hollingsead

Brent serves as the Web Design Principal for Ztories. He specializes in guiding the creative look and feel of websites, with an eye on successfully implementing the branding strategy throughout your college or institutional site.

As a Creative Director and Interactive Designer, Brent has enjoyed success with many high profile clients and has led technology strategy and branding initiatives for over fifteen years. In addition to hands-on design artistry and strategy formulation, his responsibilities have included proposal creation, charter development, resource allocation, use-case development, client presentation, the management of design teams on creative initiatives, and creative director of several television commercials. Many of these projects involved complex Flash action scripting, database management, e-commerce capabilities, and analysis of business processes. Brent's portfolio work has included large scale projects with companies such as Pepsi, Nokia, Clarian Health Network, NCAA, Thompson (RCA), and Lilly.

Brent's communications philosophy was voiced by Dr. Jef I. Richards: "Creative without strategy is called 'art.' Creative with strategy is called 'advertising.'"

Brent has relentlessly pursued the high-level combination of design and animation sophistication that is expected on the web by the Millennial generation. Because of that rare skill, his recent focus has been in the development of cutting-edge, radically contemporary training/tutorial websites for organizations and colleges. He's also in demand for young-employee training projects for consumer-driven companies like Pepsi, Taco Bell, and Best Buy. For example, Brent recently demonstrated his savvy for reaching the toughest gamer consumers by designing the award-winning Gamecock Media site. For the NCAA, another organization which must communicate to that hip young demographic, Brent recently developed a training tutorial which unpacked their alcohol awareness program on DVD. The College of Staten Island employed his cool aesthetic to hold prospective students on its not-yet-released website upgrade with a Flash intro animation. As Art Director during his time at Expidant, Brent developed several national fraternity websites which involved complex content management systems to help streamline back-end business practices. His focus has always been on communicating brand, and providing cutting edge design style with optimal usability.

Awards and Honors:

Pepsi Super Bowl XL Site: High profile client, tight deadline… roaring success.
Addy Awards: Indianapolis Museum of Art, Eiteljorg Museum of Native American and Western Art, Expidant promotional print collateral.
Communication Arts Site of the Week: Indianapolis Museum of Art
Photodisc International Design Award,
Summit Award, Muse Award
Revolution Award: For best content-driven website. Digital Portfolio annual design book.
The Eiteljorg Museum site was featured by Encyclopedia Britannica as one of the "web's best," and was also mentioned in the New York Times.

 

Recent Web Design Examples:
www.gamecockmedia.com
www.datahousestudios.com
www.igodigital.com
www.freethinkstudios.com

Greg Lincoln

Greg Lincoln, the Market Research Director for Ztories, brings more than eight years of higher education market research and consulting accomplishments. Greg's experience in research for higher education institutions is broad and deep, covering many institutional issues such as marketing and positioning, alumni relations, admissions and enrollment, retention, and competitor research. His research experience includes all phases of the research process: establishing research objectives, determining the best data-gathering methods, analyzing and interpreting data, and reporting data in clear, concise language that allows clients to use the best information to make informed decisions for their institution.

Greg has enjoyed serving more than 60 institutions in a variety of consulting and research roles. He spent three years on the staff of Noel-Levitz, three years in research and client consulting roles at Lipman Hearne, and as a freelance consultant. More recently, Greg has served two NYC area institutions in Institutional Research roles, managing assessment, research, and reporting efforts across several campuses. He creates survey instruments, oversees the design of questionnaires and the emailing process, monitors and evaluate the results, and helps present and contextualize our findings for the college clients we serve.

Greg brings market research and consulting experience with: Rutgers, Syracuse, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Baylor, University of Arizona, St. Louis University, Hope International, West Virginia University, Seton Hall, Passaic County Community College, University of Detroit Mercy, Graceland University, Southwestern Adventist University, Samuel Merritt College, Washington & Jefferson College, Stevens Institute of Technology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, University of Louisiana State System, University of Illionis Urbana-Champaign, Dakota State, Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Mobile, and others.

Alicia Clark comes to Ztories after a brief but successful career as a high school English teacher and track coach. You'll find her to be personable, creative, and energetic ... focused on your success and how Ztories can help to maximize it. As our Account Executive, Alicia brings a personal touch to every client contact. She researches your institution, with a desire to understand what your needs might be. Count on Alicia to be your first phone call and a convenient point of contact throughout the creative process. She also heads up the quoting and planning operation for GPS College Tours. Call or text Alicia on her direct line: 614-535-8547.