Blueshoe Spoonbend

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"Thank you all for making today such a high quality, on the mark presentation. We hit a home run with the Brand Dossier."
Diana Arney, Director of Marketing, Hart InterCivic

what's important to your business.
Your business is on a journey. In every way as real, fluid, and unique a journey as your own. It’s about newness and promise. Change and challenge. Success hard-earned and well-deserved.

Using an inquisitive approach and signature processes such as our Brand Dossier™ and Aesthetic Profile, we dig into the company culture and brand to produce the stellar creative thinking that impacts growth.

We specialize in serving privately-held companies guided by smart, engaged leadership. Our local, regional, and national clients are startups surging with energy and possibility and established firms navigating a significant transition. And everything in between.

Wherever your journey takes you, our goal is to be the creative partner you count on to get there successfully.

Branding and Identity :: Research and Strategy :: Interactive and Social Media :: Classic Traditional Marketing and Media Planning :: Graphic, Interactive, Web Site and Environmental Design :: Product Development

97 Degrees West is an extraordinary group of people with expertise, imagination, and strong business sense who -- with a little bit of good luck -- have come together to create something that is special in our field. Our promise is threefold: to be a fully engaged partner; to deliver work that is remarkable for its creativity; and most importantly, to be purposeful in our relevance to our clients' journeys.

Bridging two worlds comes naturally to German-born, American-raised Vera Fischer, whose career has been marked by the ability to master the strategic nuances between clients and agencies, brands and consumers, strategy and execution, traditional and interactive media.

Her professional life was jump-started at GSD&M and took off with T3, before Vera moved to the client side as Vice President at Portaris and then as Director of Marketing at Forgent Networks, serving under the visionary CEO who had once introduced the world to the wildly profitable line of HP printers. After founding her own successful firm, Blue Shoe Marketing, the resourceful and engaging hybrid talent launched 97 Degrees West with Tina Schweiger in 2008 to create the strongest links possible between people and brands through innovative research, global design, and unleashing the power of social media.

Vera is a gifted interviewer and inspirational team leader with an outstanding understanding of business and finance, who most enjoys working with clients to identify and solve their marketing challenges. Her ideas are rooted in highly original research-- such as that delivered in the agency’s signature Brand Dossier™-- and she has built a strong reputation for being a tech- and people-savvy branding pro whose inventive solutions work from both corporate and creative perspectives.

But while Vera Fischer brings serious marketing smarts to every assignment, she delivers it in her own signature style. The self-described fashionista is named for the stunning grandmother who regularly dined with Gregory Peck and taught her how keep her feet firmly planted in two cultures… in high heels, of course.

It’s no wonder Tina Schweiger loves the science of color. The daughter of chemistry and physics professors, Tina is that highly unusual cross between über reality and unleashed imagination, whose upbringing informs her mastery of the brainier side of branding… as well as her ability to explain exactly why a creative solution syncs perfectly with a client’s short- and long-term goals.

The U.T. grad and state champion swimmer started her marketing career in Atlanta in architectural graphics, then moved through the traditional, environmental and web design paces with Federated Department Stores and Goldsmith. She launched her own clothing label in Manhattan, then opened a successful branding agency in Austin, Texas, Spoonbend, which served clients with inspired website and traditional media solutions in a crowded messaging universe.

In 2008, Tina merged her company with Vera Fischer‘s Blue Shoe Marketing, and together 97 Degrees West is deeply immersed in the business of global branding for health and wellness, travel, fashion, beverage and other lifestyle clients worldwide. From this alliance emerged the agency’s customized client Brand Dossier, the foundation for profitable creative solutions that make perfect sense to marketing execs, CEOs, and yes, even science teachers.

Few accounting experts are comfortable at the junction of Creative and Cash but then, Ruth Framel isn’t the typical bean counter at the wheel. And while “financial discipline” aren’t the most musical words in the English language, to 97 Degrees West’s experienced and engaging CFO, they’re the essential base notes for successful companies, marketing agencies and their clients— and it’s what makes her heart sing professionally. (Go figure.) Ruth is a highly organized key player at the firm, overseeing budgets to make sure every client’s investment in their brand stays exactly on track and that the agency meets its own financial goals, too. The A&M Business School grad honed her skills at a Big 8 firm in Houston and served a multitude of corporate, entrepreneurial and non-profit clients during her 20+ year career in California and Texas, before joining 97 Degrees West to ensure resources flow intelligently and responsibly through transparent accounting practices-- freeing agency creatives to deliver the most imaginative and productive work possible on budget and on schedule.

“Client service” is one of those overused phrases that often under-delivers on its promise, but for 97 Degrees West’s Linda Richey, building long-term relationships by serving clients well is the touchstone of a successful and satisfying professional life in strategic branding. Linda joined the fast-growing firm in 2009 as the chief liaison between companies and their creative partners. She is responsible for everything from brand strategies to media planning, ensuring that projects stay on time, on message and on budget. The fitness and research-oriented Trinity University grad started her career in San Francisco, before moving to Austin to work for Holt Reinhart and subsequently Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing. Linda brings insight, energy, wit and wisdom to the team, making her equally appealing (and effective) with clients and creatives from all walks of life.

It’s hard to imagine a career trajectory like the school bassoon player becoming a professional branding expert, but that arc may explain Jeff Joiner’s ability to motivate and direct the Austin and Manhattan creative crews serving the diverse range of 97 Degrees West clients. From overseeing the production of the agency’s signature Brand Dossier™ and spot-on Websites to personally delivering corporate identities and powerhouse logos, the former Los Angeles-based art director is a tireless researcher who first immerses himself completely in a client’s business before starting the blueprint for any project or campaign. The grace note for 97 Degrees West’s multi-talented creative director is simple, elegant and clear: Jeff is on a mission to discover the intrinsic value of a brand, and bring that harmony to the rest of the world.

"Keep up the good work, and thank you for taking such care with my brand - I know it's in good hands."