The GLS & Olive and Company...The Home Team Wins

Design firm Olive and Company recently rolled out a new "Family of Services" campaign for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM). As a result, new home buyers are getting connected with WFHM while staying organized throughout the process with the help of a stylish binder.

GLS was selected to partner with Olive in the printing, bindery, assembly, shipping and warehousing of this high-impact marketing program. The campaign was intended to help Wells Fargo Home Mortgage's joint venture realtors open more WFHM loans by promoting the value and convenience of using their family of services during the home buying experience.

For this program, Olive conceived a binder to organize the paperwork that home buyers receive. They also produced Sales Kits-with office posters, talking points, brochures and a letter from the agency broker/owner-to help realtors position the program effectively to home buyers.

Initially, Olive and Company was challenged to create a design that would appeal to a wide range of audiences across the nation. This proved to be more difficult than expected.

“We never had to worry that the program would be delivered accurately and on-time.” – Salena Gallo, – Director of Creative Accounts, – Olive and Company

Salena Gallo, Director of Creative Accounts at Olive and Company, explains, “The joint venture partners wanted to customize their kits with colors, photos of people, and home styles that more closely matched the customers in their markets.”

However, this would have required several versions of the kits with smaller print runs that would have driven up costs. The designers had to find another solution.

Olive and Company also wanted to ensure the binder would be an effective organizational tool. They joined with WFHM to brainstorm the various issues home buyers face. One that rose to the top was the large amount of paperwork—so they decided that the binder should organize every essential piece of information a home buyer receives.

In the end, Olive landed on a neutral design that could attract audiences all across the U.S. They also recommended a series of less-expensive inserts that could be produced for each region, featuring design elements that would appeal specifically to each partner’s customer base.

The resulting binder sports the headline, “The Road to Home Sweet Home,” with a cover photo of a young couple rejoicing in their new home. The inner pockets are presented in contemporary hues like pistachio green, heather gray, brick red and dusty blue. The attractive fonts, symbolic photos and white space adds to the artful yet orderly presentation.

The binder is divided into nine folders, each representing a different stage in the process—selling, buying, financing, title, insurance, closing, warranty, disclosures, and additional services. A business card holder collects important contacts and a CD pocket protects the electronic documents that buyers often receive at closing. Finally, a map uses imagery to simplify the steps required to buy a new home.

For this project, Olive and Company needed more than just a printing expert—they required a partner that could handle the assembly, storage and shipping, and who would also help them find the right program elements. They found their match in GLS, and in the expertise of Account Executive Mike Koshiol.

Salena explains, “Mike worked closely with us to determine the best way to construct the binder. He helped us select paper stocks and assembly systems that could bring down the cost but still give us the elements we wanted.”

According to Mike Koshiol, there was plenty of preparation, planning and research before the project got off the ground.

Mike recalls, “There were many rounds of sample mock-ups, and we spent a lot of time pricing the various options to find the best solution.”

Salena Gallo says, “GLS worked under some pretty tight timelines and still produced an extremely accurate and high quality end product. We never had to worry that the program would be delivered accurately and on-time.”

Salena summarizes, “Mike manages the details. He is extremely thorough and detail-oriented and provides exceptional customer service. We don't have to worry about an element or a deadline being missed.”

In the end, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage was very pleased with the campaign. Realtor partners who picked up the program are successfully getting it into customers’ hands, and WFHM hopes to take it to more partner markets in the future.

With GLS and Olive and Company on the home team, it’s sure to be a winning game.

To learn more about Olive and Company, visit www.oliveandcompany.com.