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