case studye-commerce · 2023–present

CZ Grain

1,610 listings on Amazon, and nobody in the aisle to explain them.

CZ Grain is a family-run nursery in Iowa that sells live plants, bulbs, seeds and willow cuttings, mostly through Amazon. We designed and wrote its Amazon brand store, made the product video ads that ran in Amazon search, and wrote and cut a 30-second streaming TV spot, working alongside the brand’s Amazon Ads team.

Client
CZ Grain
Years
2023–present
Scope
Store design & copy · video ads · TV spot · series
Where it runs
Amazon brand store · Sponsored Brands · streaming TV
The owners of CZ Grain standing in a row of willows on their farm
Bonsai category tile from the CZ Grain Amazon store
Bamboo category tile from the CZ Grain Amazon store
A frame from the willow bonsai video ad: cuttings packed in buckets

The owners, in their willow rows · store tiles and a frame from an ad

01 · Cutting The catalog

A nursery that lives one listing at a time

CZ Grain’s best seller starts as a bare willow cutting in a glass of water. Everything else on the farm ships the same way it’s sold: one Amazon listing at a time. Bonsai and privacy trees, tree and flower seed, bulbs, food-plot seed, chicken feed, kits. In March 2023 there were 1,610 of them, and the job was to make them read as one company.

1,610Amazon listings, March 2023
8store categories we sorted them into
615-second product ads in the first round
30sstreaming TV spot
Willow cuttings sorted into buckets beside shipping boxes
Cuttings, bucketed for shipping.
The seed room: drawers of seed packets on a workbench
The seed room.
Two hands holding a pile of seed corn
Food-plot seed, by the handful.

02 · Water The store

1,610 listings, eight front doors

We sorted the whole catalog by hand into the store’s categories, ranked each one by best sellers, then designed every page and category tile and wrote the copy. Amazon’s Store+ design team built the store from our files, and we’ve added pages and sections since.

CZ Grain
  • Trees
  • Seeds
  • Flowers & Bulbs
  • Food Plots
  • Chickens
  • Feeds
  • Indoor Plants
  • Kits
Store tile: Bonsai
Store tile: Bamboo
Store tile: Food Plots, Cover Crops and Grasses
Store tile: Chickens

Category tiles from our 2023 store files. The category bar is rebuilt from our catalog sheet. One leaf green, one curve, a photograph that names the aisle.

03 · Roots The ads

Fifteen seconds, one product, no wasted frames

CZ Grain’s Amazon Ads account team gave us a short brief for Sponsored Brands video: about fifteen seconds, one product, clear from the first frame. We cut six against it. Scroll through the willow ad below. It plays as you move.

Sponsored · CZ GrainWillow bonsai · 0:15
  1. 0:00Name it over the field. The product title sits on an aerial of the willow rows, so the first second answers “what is this.”
  2. 0:04Show what arrives. Cuttings in buckets, the way they ship.
  3. 0:08Show what it becomes. The grower beside a full-grown willow.
  4. 0:14The logo, then out. Nothing to read twice.

Through Amazon’s ad review

Three of the first six came back from Amazon’s ad-policy review. One line of voiceover, one spoken mention of Amazon and one music bed had to go. We recut all three. Two ran, and a rye cover-crop cut took the third slot.

Mother of Thousands
Red Oak Seedling
Cat Grass
Black Bamboo
Wax Amaryllis

04 · Soil The TV spot

Thirty seconds for the living room

Amazon Ads offered CZ Grain a streaming TV slot. We wrote the script, cut the spot and recorded a scratch voiceover to time it. Amazon Ads’ campaign and creative team reviewed the first cut with us, asked for the “Available at Amazon” end card and a logo bug, and it ran for a month in the summer of 2023.

  1. Life moves fast, doesn’t it?Open on the city
  2. Sometimes, we forget to stop… to breathe… to connect with nature.Morning, before the day starts
  3. But what if nature could come to you?The store, on a phone
  4. Every order is handpicked and carefully packaged…The packing room
Greenery Delivered · 30-second streaming TV spot. Lines are from our first-draft script. Frames are from the finished cut.

05 · Canopy The series

Then the willow got its own show

The willow is CZ Grain’s signature: a bare cutting that roots in a cup of water in two to four weeks and goes in the ground after that. We built a vertical series around it, short and practical: rooting, trimming, planting.

From the willow series: cuttings to bonsai, rooting in water, trimming. First 20 seconds of each.

The owner kneeling to plant a tree at the edge of a field

In development · fall 2026

Five shows from one day on the farm

In October 2026 we filmed a full day across the farm: the willow rows, the grow room, the seed wall, the packing floor. Alongside this year’s theater film, we’re developing repeatable series from the same footage. These are the first looks at how each show opens, titles itself and closes.

Out the DoorThe orders
From the RowsThe people
CZ GrowsThe catalog
Ask the NurseryThe questions
The Seed WallThe surprises

Design studies, silent, cut from the October 2026 shoot. The episodes are still being built.

We’re still working with CZ Grain. More is growing on the farm.

colophoncz grain · 2023–present

Who made it, and with whom

Store design & copy
The Laing Label: catalog sort, page designs, category tiles, copy. Built by Amazon’s Store+ design team from our files.
Product video ads
The Laing Label, to a brief from CZ Grain’s Amazon Ads account team. Recut through Amazon’s ad-policy review.
Streaming TV spot
Written and cut by The Laing Label. Reviewed with Amazon Ads’ campaign and creative team.
Willow series
The Laing Label, on the farm with the owners.
Series looks
The Laing Label, from a shoot day on the farm in October 2026. In development.
Type
Montserrat for CZ Grain · Epilogue and JetBrains Mono for this frame
Not shown
CZ Grain’s sales figures. They’re the client’s to share.

shape the story. clarify the message. build something people can feel.

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