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One of our partners approached us looking for a fresh brand identity and a communication strategy for their client, The Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation’s Careers in Entertainment Tour initiative.
That’s right! The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air himself handpicked us to help with his charity! He came to our office and rapped for us and everything … Okay fine, we didn’t really meet Will Smith or his family and maybe “handpicked” is a bit of an exaggeration.
Nevertheless, we did get to work on this amazing project for Will and Jada’s foundation.
The foundation was set up to “improve lives and better the world through arts, education, sustainability and social empowerment.”
More specifically, the Foundation’s Careers in Entertainment Tour (CIE) initiative was created to provide underprivileged young people throughout the US a chance to find out about the entertainment industry and connect them with people who could help them with career opportunities in this industry.
Will and Jada’s foundation tapped us to create the CIE brand along with a website and marketing materials that would appeal to 15-22 year olds across the US. The materials we came up with had to connect with young people and their parents, while also attracting corporate sponsors.
As this was a brand new initiative for the Foundation, we had to develop the entire brand identity from the ground up with input from the client.
The first thing we did for this particular project was binge watch the first three seasons of Fresh Prince (which is to say a few members of the Sabra team sat down and brainstormed some ideas with the client).
Design Phases
As with all our clients, we invited the Foundation reps to complete our Creative Questionnaire, which gives us an idea of what they’re after and allows them to give us some examples of what they’d like their materials to look like.
Through a few rounds of design and feedback, we worked closely with the Foundation to create a brand that had a youthful and energetic feel, while also appealing to parents, partners and potential sponsors. This project had to cover a lot of bases.
To launch this new brand and make sure it received the proper amount of exposure (ie: lots), we delivered the following creative pieces to the Foundation:
The CIE Tour logo had to convey all the necessary information while looking fun enough to capture the attention of teens and young adults, but professional enough to make corporate sponsors want to get involved with the initiative. We decided on a rectangular logo that contained both the acronym and the full name, plus a smaller mini-logo consisting of a star in a circle in the word “tour.” This modular configuration allowed the Foundation to break up the logo into different parts. For example, they could use the entire logo or just the acronym or just the full words. Lastly, they could even extract the circular mini-logo for branding purposes.
This is a piece that we provide to all clients who use Sabra branding services. It’s basically a “user manual” for the brand. It tells them what colors we used, what fonts we used and it gives them files of their logo in a variety of shades so they can pick the right one for whatever purpose they need it for.
The reason we do this is because even after the organization who hired us takes the reigns of their new brand, we here at Sabra want to make sure that brand stays consistent. The guide tells organizations the best way to use their brand and even what not to do with it.
Our fantastic web development team designed and built a custom website that would actively promote the CIE Tour and encourage sign ups for the roadshow events with 15-22 years olds in mind. That meant cutting edge functionality and making the site responsive so it could be accessed and still look good on any device. And because we know this age group wants things as of now, making the site fast loading was a top priority.
The site’s content management system allows CIE to easily update it. We also included video and photo capability and event registration forms, along with the capability for a live feed in order to stream the roadshow events.
The Sabra team designed and created an overview deck to give people a taste of exactly what the Careers in Entertainment Tour initiative is about, who it’s for, and what it aims to achieve.
The overview deck also provided background on the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, outlining its history and goals as the Foundation approached its 20th anniversary. Will and Jada’s foundation has achieved some pretty cool things and we wanted to showcase this for them.
We linked the deck to the specially created CIE Tour social media accounts for greater engagement. The deck was branded in line with all the marketing materials and included plenty of photos showcasing the events.
Events of this magnitude need suitable partners to build relationships with and strengthen the brand through association. We devised a branded partnership deck aimed at potential regional, national and celebrity partners.
The deck included key information on the Foundation’s mission and vision along with information about the CIE Tour, including event locations and partnership packages. All the information showcased in the partnership deck was aimed at getting sponsors for the CIE Tour.
Flyers were essential for each stop on the tour to cross promote our online marketing efforts and display the CIE brand in key locations prior to the tour dates in major US cities.
The two words we kept in mind while developing these flyers were “bright” and “dynamic,” because we wanted to convey positivity and excitement for this event. Of course we included all key social media links so people could check in online as soon as they read about the upcoming events.
We don’t want to brag, but we wouldn’t be surprised if some of them got framed and hung up on some walls … like maybe in Will’s house. Just sayin’.
Fully branded event program books were an essential part of this project and we included navigation guides for the venues and lists of all panel speakers, sponsors and social media links inside the books so they would be highly useful to attendees.
We also placed background information and the daily schedule inside to make the whole event easily navigable for those in attendance. Essentially, these event books were roadmaps for each event.
We don’t really do the Snapchat thing ourselves, but given the age of the event attendees, we knew they would be using it. So, we decided to create a Snapchat filter in order to further promote the events and the CIE brand.
This allowed all of the 15-22 year olds to easily promote the CIE brand and events to their peers — also key members of the target market — via Snapchat.
With our combined online and offline marketing strategy, the CIE Tour and brand reached a large segment of the target market the Foundation was aiming to reach.
Branded Strategic
Partners
Event Attendees
Emails Sent
Website
Page Views
Social Media
Followers
We are incredibly proud of this project, not just because we helped the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation launch this new CIE brand and reach its goals, but because we got to help kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods all across the country take that first step to potentially having a dream career in the entertainment industry.
Let us help. Schedule a call to speak with our Creative Director to learn more about Sabra Concierge.
