Cutting-Edge MarCom Strategists Connect With Connecticut CEOs

Leverage's Casale & Goodwick on Corporate Crusade to Make New Converts with 'Motivated Messaging' Approach

(January 27, 2004 - NEWTOWN, Conn.) Corporate chief executives are getting more involved with their companies' marketing communications efforts. That's the good news. But according to two Connecticut marketing strategists, many CEOs and other corporate policy makers are unfamiliar with some of the strategies and tactics required to be effective in today's message-laden, media-saturated world.

Enter Mike Casale and David Goodwick, partners and senior executives at Leverage Marketing Group in Newtown. The duo is offering their unique perspective and expertise - which spans employee relations, consumer promotions and business-to-business marcom disciplines - to help CEOs lead and inspire their employees, customers and stakeholders.

"The reality is most people don't read and don't listen - unless they are truly motivated," states Casale. "Utilizing proven tactics, tools and techniques that leverage your brand, we can show companies how to motivate the toughest target audiences, internal or external, to accept and respond to your brand message."

Moreover, they say, Motivated Messaging can add measurable value to an existing advertising or marketing communications plan.

"We're all about changing perceptions and adding value," says Goodwick, "sometimes from the inside out and, increasingly, from the top down. The desire to do something differently must start at the top."

"The new mantra," adds Goodwick, "is ROMI, or Return On Marketing Investment. Time and again, we've seen Motivated Messaging help companies improve their return while building their brand."

About Mike Casale, President & Partner

With diverse, hands-on and managerial-level experience in all realms of advertising and marketing communications, Mike Casale has been connected to over 100 leading brands in over 70 different categories. Mike's career got off to an early start in the late '70s when, at just 23, he was named the youngest account executive at McCann-Erickson Worldwide to work with the Coca-Cola Co. In three short years, he was selected for McCann's Executive Development Program in New York, and rose to Senior AE on accounts such as Sony and NBC. Investigating the "client side," Mike then joined General Foods (Kraft), where he supervised promotions for Maxwell House. Later, Mike joined AMA, Ltd., ranked among the nation's five fastest growing sales promotion agencies where within five years he moved from Director of Client Services to Partner for his work on over 30 National and Regional Accounts. As a nationally recognized response-marketing expert, he has been a recipient of several national awards, including the Addy, Crain and REGGIE.

About David Goodwick, CEO & Partner

Prior to founding Goodwick Associates, a leading Fairfield County-based Business-to-Business marketing communications agency, and Leverage Marketing Group, a cutting-edge consulting and creative shop merging B2B and consumer disciplines, David successfully worked on the client side. At General Electric he was a strategist and account manager for the Advertising and Sales Promotion Operation, where he was responsible for program development, implementation, budget planning and control for several GE operations. As an independent advertising and marcom expert, David is perhaps best known for his role as marketing strategist for Oracle's Industries Programs and the launch of several new vertical markets, including Automotive, CPG, Energy and Insurance. David's been involved with countless other new product launches, channel marketing programs and branding campaigns for clients that include BIC, IBM and Unilock. His trade ad for Sealed Air Corporation, "This is Waste, This is Waste Management", was recently named one of the "Most Significant Ads of the 20th Century," as rated by readers of Industrial Equipment News. Since them he has partnered with or otherwise supported the efforts of IBM and nearly a dozen "Fast 50" companies in Connecticut, including Photronics and Triple Point Technology.

Leverage Marketing Group currently services over a dozen accounts, including Cendant Mobility, Coca-Cola, The Finn Commerce and Technology Center, Sealed Air Corporation, Shaw's and Unilock.