Knockout Marketing (KO Marketing Group LLC) is a Charlotte-based, creative and marketing solutions provider formed by Keith Karr and Owen Ryan. KO Marketing officially merges the long-standing collaboration of their individual companies Karr Creative and Owen Ryan & Associates.
K = Keith Karr: Founder of Karr Creative. Highly accomplished visual communicator, web designer and film maker/photographer. Graduate of VCU | Communication Arts & Design. Founder with his wife Joanne of Union Jack Photography and Film Production.
O = Owen Ryan: Award-winning copywriter and Creative Director at multiple NYC Ad Agencies. Founder of Owen Ryan & Associates (An Imagination Agency®) and founder of multiple start-up ventures in CPG, magazine publishing, and Direct-To-Consumer categories.
WHAT WE DO:
Develop and execute breakthrough marketing and sales promotion ideas.
Serve as confidential “Second Opinion” advisor to management & BOD’s regarding key marketing, strategy and/or crisis management situations.
WHO WE’VE WORKED FOR.
Keith and Owen include in their client resumes work with some of the most well-known marketers and CEO’s in American business. Assignments have ranged from brand development and mission-critical Crisis Communicaions matters for Anheuser-Busch, Westinghouse and Johnson & Johnson to new product development and brand introductions for Kraft Foods, J&J, JP Morgan/Chase Bank and Sony Pictures. Owen Ryan has worked as a strategy and corporate communications advisor to top management at Kraft Foods, Safeway stores, Citibank, Blackstone Group and GE. Separately, Karr and Ryan through their collaboration with Silicon Valley based Founder Institute – the World’s leading tech entrepreneur and education program — have helped launch tiny web-based and tech start-up ventures.
CHARLOTTE PRESS
I moved from NYC to North Carolina in 2006 to launch VOLT® to compete with Gatorade and Mountain Dew, two brands from PepsiCo with $11 billion in sales. By 2008 I had gained traction in convenience stores in NC, VA and FL, including chains like Walgreens. I recruited a former President of 7-UP to help run the business and attracted new capital. VOLT then expanded to 10 states backed by a Philadelphia-based investment group. In 2009, an experienced beverage industry CEO was appointed to deal with the challenges VOLT® faced competing with Coke and Pepsi, while I expensively battled Coke in a stressful David vs. Goliath lawsuit they had filed against me personally in Federal Court in a failed attempt to cancel the VOLT® trademark.READ MORE
