Keep America Beautiful TrashDash
I was hired by Keep America Beautiful to theme creative for an upcoming event. The challenge was that there was an extremely tight turn around. I was brought on 3.5 weeks before the event was to occur, and while the run of show and event layout was in place, I needed come up with a concept, and create a cohesive experience and ship pieces to the print vendors quickly. I also needed to come up with an advertising campaign. Since the first print deadline was 4 days after I was hired, I scheduled a kickoff meeting for that afternoon and then cancelled my weekend plans.
The Case Study
The Ask:
Concept an event, and create an ad campaign.
The Pain Point:
Clock is ticking - The event is in 30 days.
The Ideation:
I knew I basically had a day to think through a concept, and a week to get the event pieces ready to ship to the printer. Then I needed to think through how this event should be advertised. Because this was a race, tying in a journey or destination felt right. I played with pathways, but I felt I should put this idea in my back pocket for an airline client. Also, one of the asks was creating pieces for the race that displayed stats, and this didn't feel illustrative enough.
The Iteration:
The idea of a journey was a good one, but not when I had the focus point on the race. I realized the journey was of the trash itself. I could use continuous line art to represent the travels of the trash before it wound up in the river, or a turtle, and the stats tied in with this idea much better as opposed to feeling plopped on top of creative. The color palette was an easy jump to blue and green to bring in the environmental aspect. Just using a white background didn't feel right, so I incorporated the blue and green circle background to further tie in the environmental idea and give the pieces that didn't require illustration a more cohesive feel. Spotlighting the animals inside the trash, or the trash inside the animals was a visual way to draw attention to what was at stake.
The Validation:
I was able to get the fastest approval I have ever received from a client, and got to work building the pieces needed for the race while strategizing on how to advertise the event with not that much budget left. Every dollar counts in the non-profit space.
The Ad Campaign.
KAB had a leftover ad buy for the train line in the area, so putting up posters to catch city commuters seemed like a no-brainer. Utilizing the billboard seen from I-95 that was actually in the middle of the race path was another win, as the space was donated to KAB for the short campaign duration.
Since there was no more budget left, I suggested moving into the digital space to further promote the event. While we didn't have money for any PPCs, Since KAB was already running a #DoBeautifulThings campaign on the social platform formally known as Twitter and on Instagram, I decided to use the momentum and added the hashtag to the event creative and signage. Finally, KAB was already set up with email marketing, so blasting KAB supporters with an email about the event was another easy win.
