Who Tom Kegley IsWhat Tom Kegley DoesWhere Tom Kegley Is
 

Marketing Communicaions

I know how to manage a multi-faceted communications program, strategically and tactically. I can help define the quintessential value of your brand, align the essence at all constituent touch points, and coordinate the message across all appropriate channels. I have a recent track record of innovative marketing for the horticulture industry and a wide-ranging prior experience in other industries.

I've had key roles in the development, market introduction, and management of corporate, product, and service brands in regional, national, and international markets. I work at any corporate level and collaborate with key individuals and teams to promote the sale of products and services to industry and consumer audiences in a coordinated and integrated manner.

In fast pace, I produce marketing communication for internal and external uses, utilize electronic and print media for every type of graphic communication, and employ advertising and media relations for any group. I copy write messages for newsletters, collateral literature, press releases, and web content. I design and coordinate trade show presence on large or small scale. I have print, photography, illustration, and AV service contacts. I apply all available resources to maximize impact of message with cost-efficiency.

My skills and talents offer a highly effective and complete package for marketing and communications. I am ready for any challenge and could be the perfect fit for your needs. Call or write. Let's get started!

For the Record

Qualifications

  • On a Big Stage: Extensive experience on local, regional, national, and international levels in corporate marketing and communications from planning to execution to dissemination.
  • Brand Builder: Versed in trade and consumer brand creation and management. Communicating brand tenets internally and externally to maintain brand integrity.
  • Set a Course and Go: Initiating and participating in long-range strategic marketing planning for targeted market segments with responsibilities for marketing implementation.
  • A Seat at The Table: Working directly with the highest echelons of corporate structure- board of director and presidential level, for companies with regional, national, and international concerns.
  • Pull Out the Stops: Annually developing, overseeing, and executing a comprehensive marketing and communications program, with elements of: strategic planning, budgeting, advertising, public relations, writing, special promotions, print/electronic messaging, merchandising, conferences/meetings and trade shows. Prioritize and manage numerous overlapping projects in various stages of completion with a constant eye on deadline.
  • Turning Heads: Award-winning creative for marketing communication across a diverse range of products and services in 2-D, 3-D, and electronic mediums.

Experience

Director of Marketing Communications, Novalis/Carolina Nurseries
Moncks Corner, SC, Jan. 2004 to August 2010

The Mission: Orchestrate and execute comprehensive marketing and communications for a start-up marketing consortium of 16 wholesale greenhouse and nursery growers with product distribution to 3000+ retail and re-wholesale outlets in the US. Brand definition and management related to licensed growers, independent garden centers, landscape architect/designers/ contractors, and consumer gardeners.

  • Creating a Business Start-up: Integral role in creating the Novalis growers consortium concept and its comprehensive umbrella consumer plant brand, Plants that Work®, from 1998 to 2001.
  • Work with a Team from Top to Bottom: Work closely with the Novalis Board of Directors to formulate goals that set the course for the marketing and communications program annually. Work directly with presidents, marketing, and sales managers of licensees across the country to regionally implement marketing strategies.
  • In Touch with Administrative: Work closely with Novalis Director of Administration to develop communications budgets annually based on sales projections a year in advance. Strictly adhering to approved budgets for given fiscal years.
  • Articulate Product to Market: Work closely with Novalis Director of New Product Development to align marketing and communications with a dynamic flow of new plant material to the marketplace. Develop and execute marketing programs and campaigns around new products and services for industry and consumer targets.
  • Tell It on the Inside Before You Sell It on the Outside: Communicate and coordinate daily across the consortium network with licensee marketing and sales teams to insure consistent messaging. Visit with each licensee marketing/sales staff once a year to update and preview marketing efforts for the coming year. Participate in the gathering of licensees once a year at corporate headquarters for 2-3 days of planning ahead and assessing the previous year's efforts.
  • Keeping Everyone on the Same Page: Be a central figure as needed to build consensus among divergent camps with differing agendas in order to advance the goals of the consortium. Mediate disagreement and conflict, finding solution and compromise.
  • Versed in Communications Vehicles: Employ all mediums of communication to extend the brand message, including print, digital, film, web, social media, and live presentation.
  • Public Relations- Directed and Hands-On: Work closely with outside public relations firm to guide a national program of trade and consumer media relations, including news and product releases, article placement in national trade and consumer media, and special promotions with targeted media. Assume an active role in formulating, writing, and distributing press releases to media list from inside the corporation in matters of delicate nature and crisis.
  • Maintaining Sense of Place in the Market: Stay abreast and in step with trends and happenings in the industry and with consumers, through initiated market research and intuitive observation, to stay ahead of curves and maintain brand balance. Develop and maintain strategic relationships with tangent industry entities to strengthen the Novalis brand stature and equity- including trade associations, marketing and research consultants, buyers groups, think tanks, and national celebrities.
  • Establishing and Maintaining a Comprehensive Web Site: Manage the Novalis website, providing content for three market segments (consumer, retail, landscape), working closely with outside web vendor. Annually updating a changing product line with more than 1200 plant varieties. Overhauling the web site every three years to keep pace with evolution of web trends.
  • Art Direction: Guide and direct Novalis Director of Art in execution of given creative strategies and concepts. Final approval on all material prior to production.
  • Brand Legal: Work with legal teams to create and adhere to trademark and registration guidelines for exclusive or patented plant material, brand names, and taglines. Vigilant and reactive to brand infringement from outside sources.
  • Defining Retail Presence: Develop and produce innovative retail marketing and merchandising tools to enhance plant sales to consumer gardeners- including bench displays, signage, packaging, and literature.
  • Update Brand Product Message Periodically: Update Novalis corporate brochure and all collateral materials annually to keep in step with changing product line across 10 plant programs and 1200+ plant varieties.
  • Comprehensive Advertising Program: Coordinate and execute national and regional institutional and product advertising programs for trade and consumer media, from media planning and budgeting to creative and production. Manage co-op ad programs at regional grower level. Annual budgets as much as $250,000.
  • Overseeing Trade Show Presence: Design and coordinate 2-4 significant industry trade show exhibits throughout the year in major venues. Footprints from 20'x30' to 50'x90'. Coordinate licensee exhibits in 12-15 trade shows with smaller footprints in major cities around the country.
  • In Charge of All Vendor Support: Engage and direct outside vendor services for printing, specialty advertising, photography, illustration/rendering, packaging, retail display, AV production, etc.

Co-owner, Creative Director, Art Director, Poindexter/Bolt Advertising
Roanoke, VA, 1979 to Jan. 2004

The Mission: Directed creative for advertising programs and projects for a wide range of regional and national clients. Primary account manager for select accounts. As co-owner, jointly responsible for the operation, finance, and direction of the corporation.

  • Business Development: In 1998, secured Carolina Nurseries as an account for the agency and devoted an increasing effort to their work, which culminated in the formation of the Novalis consortium in 2001.
  • Expanded Creative Responsibilities: To 1998, worked with diverse clientele in areas of banking, property development, pork packaging, hospital, paper manufacturing, color pigment production, interactive internet and software, measurement instrumentation, law firms, and many more.
  • Creative Responsibilities: To 1994, directed creative for advertising programs and projects for a wide range of regional and national clients.
  • Art Direction: To 1984, art direction and production of advertising programs/projects for various clients.

Printing/Graphic Art, Radford Unversity
Radford, VA 1974 to 1979 i

The Mission: Graphic production at campus printing department. Interacting with administration, faculty, staff, students, and public in the production of university communications and publications.

Computer Skills

  • Based in Macintosh platform.
  • Advanced skills in Adobe Creative Suite- InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat; Quark XPress; Microsoft Office- PowerPoint.
  • Working skills in Microsoft Office Word and Excel; iMovie.

Education

  • Bachelor of Arts, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Major: Art, Minor: History

Recent National Awards

  • 2003 GPN/Scranton-Gillette Publishing Marketing Innovation Award- for the market introduction of the Plants that Work® consumer plant brand
  • 2007 Meister Media Medal of Excellence for Marketing Achievement- for the establishment of the Novalis® brand into the ornamental horticulture industry
  • 2009 InShow- 'What is Novalis?' 5-minute brand film promoting Novalis® to the industry included for best work produced in South Carolina
  • 2010 American Advertising Federation of the Midlands, Silver Medal- 'What is Novalis?' brand film wins the traditional Addy Award- (see this beautiful and emotive video at www.whatisnovalis.com)