Jul 19, 2015
2 february 20152
IMPRESSIONFrom eye-catching trade show exhibits and retail displays to engaging museum exhibits, Art Guild, Inc. helps customers make a lasting impression. This New Jersey based business specializes in 3D, face-to-face marketing and educational programs of all kinds, offering a variety of different, but
related services for top tier customers…
A LASTING
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Written by Claire Suttles
Art Guild designs and manages tradeshow programs;
designs and builds lobbies, showrooms and visitor
centers; creates and produces meetings and events;
fabricates and installs museum exhibits; and designs and
produces retail display and fixture programs.
Secrets to Success
“We build a lot of stuff,” President Doug Zegel jokes. “But that’s
not what defines success. Success for us means understand-
ing the customer’s objective and then finding a way to use the
space, materials and budget available to us to create an experi-
ence that excites, teaches and ultimately drives the action the
customer wants it to.” This could mean drumming up interest
at a trade show, driving a purchase at a retail store, or teaching
a museum visitor how electricity works. “It’s achieving that end
goal that matters.”
Offering a full suite of services gives Art Guild a definite advan-
tage. If a customer wants more than one service – a new lobby,
a tradeshow, and a retail program, for example – the team can
simplify that customer’s marketing supply chain significant-
ly. “In short, customers can get from us what they may have
needed five or more suppliers for in the past,” Doug Zegel
explains. “This also brings cost efficiencies, speed and better
consistency to a company’s brand message.”
Customers who are interested in just one service also benefit
from Art Guild’s diversification. Having experience across
multiple sectors gives Art Guild’s team a unique mix of skills and
capabilities as well as in-depth knowledge of emerging trends
in architecture, color and materials, décor, interactive technolo-
gies, multimedia, engineering, and production. Diversification
also makes the company financially stronger and creates an
extended network of supplier partners, ensuring a wider array
of solutions to any issue.
Whatever the specific service, Art Guild is committed to “putting
the customer’s business success before our own,” says Doug
Zegel. “This is a long term approach to our own success that
focuses us on the value of a long-term relationship, rather than
on a short-term business win.” The strategy has paid off. With
roots stretching all the way back to the 1920s, Art Guild has
enjoyed consistent profitability and growth for decades – while
many competitors were falling by the wayside. “A number of
our competitors were bought, sold, or went out of business,”
Doug recalls. In fact, of 11 major competitors operating in the
same market space 20 years ago, only four remain today. “We
have stood the test of time, in part because we have been able
to change and evolve with customer needs.”
“Customers can get from us what they may have needed five or more
suppliers for in the past.”
Indeed, Art Guild’s client retention rate has been outstanding
throughout its long history. “We have a number of customers,
including DuPont and Campbell’s Soup, who have been with us
for over 50 years,” Doug shares. “And more than 20 more who
have been with us for over 25 years. This kind of loyalty is rare
in any business and we attribute this directly to our business
philosophy which puts the customer’s success first.”
In order to best serve clients around the country, Art Guild has
invested in four separate facilities, including one in Las Vegas,
giving the company a presence on both the East and West
Coast. Each location is specially designed with the latest in
communication systems, design and production technologies,
hardware and supporting software.
Diverse Projects
With such a wide array of services, the team’s recent and current
projects are quite varied. In December, Art Guild’s Meetings +
Events team helped produce the Sports Illustrated Sportsman
of the Year Awards in Manhattan, which honored San Francisco
Giants’ pitcher Madison Bumgarner and featured Magic Johnson
and Bill Clinton. Art Guild created the structure and graphics
needed to bring Sports Illustrated’s vision to life, from the red
carpet and entry way to the photo op area and the cocktail party
space. Global sports and entertainment marketer Octagon
brought Art Guild into the project just weeks before the event
took place – and the team’s last minute work was a huge success.
Art Guild’s Meetings + Events Division also recently took part
in MasterCard’s “Priceless Cities” campaign, helping create a
IMPRESSION
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memorable concert experience at the Hammerstein Ballroom
in New York City. Justin Timberlake headlined the event and
Art Guild was responsible for venue management, on-site exe-
cution, exhibit and graphic production. The team successfully
created a bold, club-like atmosphere for this exciting project.
In a completely different job, Art Guild built an Extended Stay
America hotel suite in their West Deptford, New Jersey shop
for a three day photo shoot last year. The suite showcased
the hotel’s fresh new look, which is being rolled out across the
700 location hotel chain. After Art Guild’s photo shoot, the
hotel suite was dismantled and sent to New York for a video
shoot starring chef Sunny Anderson to promote her “Away
from Home Recipes,” which were developed specifically for
Extended Stay America guests.
“With roots stretching all the way back to the 1920s, Art Guild has enjoyed consistent profitability
and growth for decades.”
Art Guild has helped customers exhibit at the Electronic Enter-
tainment Expo (E3) for years, and 2014 was no exception.
Partners since 1995, the team took SEGA to the show once again
– and drew huge crowds to see the gaming company’s newest
releases. Art Guild has earned SEGA a number of Best in Shows
in the past; this is particularly impressive since SEGA’s Expo
budget is typically smaller than some of its big competitors,
which includes industry giants such as Microsoft and Nintendo.
With over 49,000 attendees and over 200 exhibitors at this
year’s E3, Art Guild had to pull out all the stops to draw traffic
to SEGA’s display. To capture attendees’ attention, the team
created two completely separate, immersive environments in
a single, 60’ x 100’ booth. One environment evoked an atmo-
sphere of “constant dread and mortal danger” to promote Isola-
tion, SEGA’s new deep space horror survival game. The other
environment brought to life the sunny, tropical, and manic
world of Sonic the Hedgehog to promote SEGA’s newest Sonic
Boom title.
In yet another type of project, Art Guild was just awarded
the role of prime contractor on the Louis Armstrong House
Museum Education Center in Queens, New York. The project
involves the creation of a new addition to the existing museum,
which is located in the famous jazz musician’s longtime home.
Art Guild has also been busy working on a Verizon exhibit that
will be displayed at Superbowl XLIX.
Looking Ahead
Art Guild’s stellar reputation helps the company continue
to bring in major projects – but it has also set an extremely
high standard. “We used to be applauded for having the best
design, but now that is an expectation,” Mr. Zegel explains. And
many customers expect top notch work at increasingly lower
costs. “No matter whom the customer is, everyone is looking
for a greater return on their investment – whether that return is
measured in sales, store or tradeshow traffic, brand awareness,
or something else. Our challenge is to be consistently smarter
than our competitors in finding new ways to help our custom-
ers get more value from their budgets.”
Because each project is unique, continually increasing the value
we bring to our customers is an ongoing challenge. “We don’t
have products in a box that we sell off the shelf,” Doug Zegel
points out. “Everything is designed to the customer’s specific
requirements. Fortunately, overcoming these kinds of chal-
lenges is exactly what Art Guild excels in – a fact that is proven
by the company’s remarkable longevity. “It is a condition of our
survival to both drive out cost and to improve the effectiveness
of what we do for our customers’ everyday. The pressure is real;
if we don’t, somebody else will.” The team has implemented a
number of key strategies to achieve this goal, “from our state-
of-the-art production facilities designed for speed and efficien-
cies, to our designers’ expertise in creating experiences that
attract attention and engage audiences more effectively.”
Harnessing the latest and best technology is also essential. “The
influence of technology has come to roost all around us. We
cannot compete without it.” Long gone are the days of paper
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and pencil sketches or of fashioning products manually. “Our
design is all virtual and our designers all design using amazing
[computer] programs. Our production is also computer
assisted, so the production machinery cuts all the parts that
used to be done by hand here.” Art Guild also makes sure
that clients can interact and manage their programs online,
ensuring smooth communication and higher levels of satisfac-
tion. “Our tradeshow clients can go online anytime 24/7 and
look at their exhibit schedule, check their inventory, and see the
status of all their projects.”
“There is more opportunity than ever before…”
After decades in business, Art Guild’s future continues to hold
promise. “There is a lot of opportunity out there,” Doug Zegel
states. “I think that our clients – whether they have been with
us 50 years or whether they are brand new – are all looking
for new and innovative ways to communicate their brands and
stories. Art Guild is perfectly poised to help them do that. The
future is brighter than ever before.”
Unit 210, 1310 Hollis Street, Halifax NS B3J 3P3, Canada | Phone: 1-888-477-2938 Ext. 206
Art Guild, Inc.
300 Wolf DriveWest Deptford, NJ 08086
P: 856.853.7500
www.artguildinc.com