This Is BS At Its Finest.

Brand Strategy That Works.

We’ve served up a high-quality and demonstrably successful client BS for decades.

BS (which also stands for “Bankable Solutions” and “Brilliant Sense”) is our stock in trade.

Because a well-considered, effectively communicated brand strategy helps businesses avoid spending a lot while going in the wrong direction with painful sales and marketing mistakes.

ROI’s a process-driven shop that first does a deep dive into your marketplace reality – the offering, the target audience(s), the competition, your business goals and how well you do or don’t communicate with consistency and effectiveness – to arrive at a branding pathway that’s authentic, credible, doable and measurably profitable.

ROI’s BS is the real deal, and . we think you’ll be Beyond Satisfied.

Contact Us

3709 Calvert Place
Kensington, MD 20895

703 813 5643

David Nellis, x223
dnellis@roiadvertising.com

ROI, Briefly

Founded in 1996, Return on Investment, Inc. (ROI) is perennially found in the Washington Business Journal’s Book of Lists among Greater Washington, DC top 20 agencies. Our sole mission is to help our clients sell their goods, services and positions.

ROI is proud to  have an exclusive teaming agreement with ApolloBravo (www.ApolloBravo.com; Alexandria, VA), an award-winning digital marketing agency specializing in online strategy since 2005. We operate as one entity.

Past and present strategic marketing and media clients reflect a broad range of highly regarded, local, regional and national companies and organizations representing a spectrum of industries. Among many others, they include:

What We Do

“ROI” is the measure of what’s gained from the dollars invested. Our team’s commitment is to deliver that gain – measurable, brand marketing and sales promotion success meeting and exceeding expectations – every time.

To do so we employ a time-proven process that follows a step-by-step, brand strategy ‘roadmap’ toward:

• Strategically positioning, branding, and promoting preference for our client’s offering among targeted audiences

• Delivering fresh creative that demands attention, stimulates interest, and compels engagement and response

• Delivering research-infused, traditional and social/digital media planning and media placement and ‘sleeves-rolled-up,’ media added-value negotiations

• Delivering efficient, effective, collegial project management and customer service

• Reliably driving superior, measured ROI to each client's bottom line

Many marketing agencies name themselves after their founders. We named ours ‘ROI’ to reflect and respect what our clients expect from their investments in marketing communications and in us.

And that’s no BS.

Services include:

• Quantitative and qualitative market research

• Strategic, brand positioning and platform development

• Marketing/media communications plan development and implementation

• Traditional, digital (including SEO), mobile, and social media marketing campaign research, planning, negotiations, purchases, and program management

• Creative conceptualization and production across the complete range of traditional and digital media

• Experiential marketing services driving data capture and lead generation, including text-to-win; mobile messaging campaigns and lead generation; location-based photo contests, mobile offers and polls, and tablet-based applications

• Public relations – Local, regional, national, and international, including crisis management and media training

• Marketing events and PR

How Well We Do It

What’s the true measure of an agency’s performance? How many awards they've won? That sounds like the real BS.

For us, great creative and media plans must measurably deliver against their sales and marketing sales goals, helping clients capture the eyeballs, ear balls, imaginations, and proactive engagement that sell the merchandise, services, and/or positions they offer.

After all is said and done, the best way to measure how well we do what we do is to look at the clients we’ve worked for, work with now, and for how long. No client keeps an agency that doesn’t deliver. ROI’s client average is well over eight years; two clients have been with us since the day we opened our doors in 1996 and several more have been with us 15+ years.

Key Players

Traditional Media Case Studies

Boston Properties

ROI’s marketing work across several years with Sigal Construction, Carr Homes and other, prominent owners and developers led us to a marketing relationship with Boston Properties, one of the largest owners, managers, and developers of first-class office properties in the United States. ROI’s work with Boston Properties included two of its highly signature properties: 2200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC and Annapolis Junction in Laurel, MD. ROI was hired to conceptualize, create and produce what turned out to be award-winning, “mother ship” leasing brochures for each property, as follows:

City of Rockville

The county seat of affluent Montgomery County, MD, Rockville is one of America’s great, small cities. So say an impressive array of media, such as USA Today, Forbes and Bloomberg Business Week, who extol that city’s high levels of education, income, and home values ranking near the top among peer, mid-market cities across the country.

Rockville retained ROI and our research partner, The Riddle Company, to develop an overarching community brand strategy highlighting the City’s diverse appeal and benefits for residents, established businesses, visitors, and new business economic development. 

Following an eight-month brand analysis (including primary and secondary, demo- and psychographic research and analysis; stakeholder meetings with Rockville’s elected and business leaders; development of a comprehensive, strategic positioning and brand platform document and creative concept development), the mayor and city council approved Rockville’s new, “Get Into It” branding campaign, extending a welcoming invitation to get into and appreciate all that Rockville offers for work, play and quality of life.  

The theme line, the iconic, graphically distinctive “R” and the comprehensive style guide ROI developed ensure signature brand imagery and messaging continuity across all of Rockville’s official communications. For evidence, one need only look to the City’s website (www.rockvillemd.gov); to graphics on the City’s Cable Channel 11; to official City publications, Parks & Recreation Department uniforms, street signage, and more … all part of a cohesive, lively, branded presentation.

The National Football League (NFL)

The NFL is America’s premier, professional sports leagues. During ROI’s tenure as the Washington Commanders’ (ne, Redskins’) direct marketing agency, the NFL retained us to create, produce and deploy branded media for the launch and rollout of its new, “Extra Points™ Visa® rewards credit card. Fans using the Extra Points™ card acquire points for every dollar spent. Points then are redeemed for NFL- and team-related experiences and merchandise. ROI’s assignment was to create a comprehensive, “promotion in a box” for marketing Extra Points™; providing each NFL team with easily customizable, on- and offline media for use in promoting Extra Points™ card sign-ups in their home markets.

We responded with the award-winning, Extra Points™ Toolkit, featuring NFL-branded, yet-customizable (by team), digital and print-ready materials needed to excite, educate and sell prospects on the program and the card. All media creative was provided with simple instructions and digital art files for all jobs, enabling quick, hassle-free production of advertising materials.

Per the NFL, the Extra Points™ card program launch was a “huge success.” In the program’s first six months, more than 100,000 new, Extra Points™ cardholders were acquired by the individual teams and the NFL.

Northwest Federal Credit Union (NWFCU)

Originally the credit union only for employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, NWFCU was “freed “ to solicit new members from the community at large.

ROI was hired to develop and implement a brand marketing and sales promotion campaign aimed at driving up new memberships on a broader scale, by branding NWFCU as a community-centric and responsive, financial institution offering individualized attention and highly competitive, loan rates across a range of loan products — auto, new home/refinancing, personal and small business.

Ourisman Automotive of Virginia

Headquartered in Northern, VA, the Virginia branch of the Ourisman Automotive organization is comprised of six dealerships — two Toyota dealerships, Ford Lincoln, Chrysler Jeep Dodge, Chevrolet Buick GMC and KIA. ROI has been the group’s agency of record since 1988.

The Target Audience

All the domestic brands — Adults 25-64, within a 20-mile radius of each dealership, specifically targeting those customers who historically prefer purchasing domestic cars and trucks. Import brands Toyota and KIA — Adults 25-49, within a 20-mile radius of each dealership, specifically targeting those customers who have preferred purchasing import cars and trucks.

THE MARKETING MISSION

ROI was retained to provide comprehensive strategic planning, marketing, media and account management services to create a differentiated, signature Ourisman (VA) look to the consumer advertising. The advertising had to have an overall Ourisman VA brand consistency across all its dealership marketing programs, yet still had to allow each dealership to maintain its own distinctive identity. Since it is the responsibility of the national automotive manufacturers to sell the actual product lines, ROI’s mission was, and remains, to focus on driving awareness, branding of — and traffic to — the dealership’s themselves and the unique or special customer benefits and services they provide at the time of, and after the purchase of, a new or used vehicle.

THE MARKETING PROGRAM

ROI continues to develop various branded TV campaigns focusing on credibility-based sell messages for each dealership. In each spot, the principal spokespersons were identifiable management representatives discussing the benefits of their dealership in an honest, no-nonsense, “non-screaming” approach. Some were even done in distinctive, non-traditional locations (Toyota, in the Tastee 29 Diner), to visually and distinctively brand the dealership and its message. Others incorporated subtle humor or visual effects to deliver the Ourisman brand message. This was supported by radio, print and direct mail advertising that mirrored the look and core messages of the TV campaigns. Each dealership program runs consistently two to three weeks each month, throughout the year.

THE RESULT

Ourisman has continued to experience annual, total units sales growth at a minimum of 8%-12% per year. They have also consistently grown their market share to over 15% in one of the most competitive automotive markets in the nation.

Social/Digital Case Studies

Samsung

ROI is the sole, outside creative team supporting the 5G Division of Samsung with digital marketing communications services.

CommonWealth One Digital Campaign

Ting Mobile

Revlon®

VeriSign Creative Class Campaign

Brooklyn Brewery Vacation

In Stadium Text-2-Win

5-Hour Energy®

Pepsi Max®

Quaker Oats Company

Coors Light®

BIC®

Our Work

Annual Reports

Sustainability Reports

Radio

TV/Video

Websites

Website Banners

Storyboards (prior to coding animation)

Contact Us

Our Top Priority Is Your Bottom Line

Contact us now to discuss your current marketing missions, challenges and the ways and means by which ROI can address them successfully.