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We’ve hand-selected these case studies to show you our range and depth in destination marketing and advertising. As you wade through, you will see that we’ve got the strategic, creative, and media chops to help Cedar Hill develop an airtight brand platform, inspired creative, and outstanding results.

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On this page, you’ll find the case studies we’ve selected especially for you. All of them showcase the talent, passion, and ingenuity we put into everything we do. Reach out if you have any questions!

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Changing the view from the 40th floor.

A woman looks out a window which reflects clouds in the sky from the other side

Top of the World Observation Level

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Top of the World Observation Level

Home Work Top of the World Observation Level

The Challenge

Despite its location on the 40th floor of the World Trade Center building in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the Top of the World Observation Level was going unnoticed by many of the tourists below. A lack of online promotion and public visibility hampered ticket sales and limited the attraction’s potential. Partnering with idfive, the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts (BOPA) sought to improve Top of the World’s awareness with a redesigned website, not only to improve ticket sales, but to make the attraction a must-see for visitors.

The Solution

Working with BOPA, idfive designed an intuitive, responsive website to improve the attraction’s awareness among tourists. Rather than trying to position the attraction as a competitor to others at the Inner Harbor, we promoted it as the perfect place to start your day trip to the Harbor. The site encourages visitors to use the building’s 360-degree panoramic view of the city to see what’s around and visually plan their adventures. Supporting this strategy is a “What’s Nearby” feature that displays the proximity of top attractions as well as an “Upcoming Events” section with the latest happenings in Baltimore.

Development

idfive also performed technical and content search engine optimization to ensure visitors can easily find the Top of the World online. The mobile-first design makes it easy to see location, hours, and ticket pricing information without sacrificing the user experience on smaller devices. The website has won a number of industry awards for design and UX, while making it a lot harder for people to miss this iconic Inner Harbor destination.

Defining the voice of a community pillar.

Aims Community College

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Aims Community College

Home Work Aims Community College

The Challege

Aims Community College shatters the common perception of “community college,” with multiple locations and state-of-the-art facilities—including commercial-grade flight simulators, maker spaces, and a new community welcome center, to name a few features. But it lacked a cohesive brand to support its vision as a “first choice” and recognized leader in student success.

The Strategy

With an initial scope of work to analyze the current Aims brand, idfive started in a familiar place: with research, consisting of:

a brand communications audit of Aims’ existing messaging architecture, brand assets, and marketing materials.
comparative analysis of three competing colleges’ brand attributes.
an AudienceScan to determine audience sentiment (actual and desired) using surveys, interviews, and a review of existing research.
a Brand Perception Workshop to engage internal stakeholders to shape brand attributes, platform, and messaging architecture.

The final deliverables included branding, a new tagline, a refreshed mascot, a viewbook, and a brand anthem video.

Branding

After presenting our findings to the president and her cabinet, our scope of work expanded to include developing a revised Aims Brand Guide. With a refreshed brand promise and platform (including supports), a revised logo, and reenergized voice and tone, the College wanted a tagline that could succinctly express the new brand’s position. Working collaboratively with the Aims MarComm team, we launched a research-based initiative to identify a new Aims tagline

— a process that started with brainstorming sessions and ended with surveys and focus groups with major campus stakeholders.

The winner—All In—is best described by our focus group participants: “Catchy, and easy to remember.” “it’s everything we are.” “It’s an allegory and delivers a broader message.” “It’s what the Aims community is.” “Put a stamp on it.”

Aims Red

Aims Black

Aims Slate

Evolution Blue

Corn Husk

Fountain

Design

Arty the Aardvark has come to represent comfort, familiarity, friendship, and kindness. For example, at Arty’s Pantry, students receive free food and basic supplies.

Since Arty isn’t your stereotypical college athletics cheerleader (Aims doesn’t have sports) the redesigned Arty needed to be more than just another pissed off mascot. He needed to be a positive, energetic personification of the institution and community.

Through a highly collaborative and iterative process, Arty emerged—he’s a little bit “dad bod,” a lot “can-do spirit,” and All In.

Viewbook

A refreshed college brand requires a bold, new recruitment publication. We wanted Aims’ new viewbook to connect with prospective students on an emotional level—a critical goal for the admissions team—while also communicating the College’s distinctions with bold visuals and user-focused content. The viewbook was also the first embodiment of the new brand guidelines we had developed for Aims, and aided in expanding on the brand’s look and feel.

To ensure the viewbook is compelling, a unique peek-a-boo cover was designed which opens to an exciting spread explaining what it means to be All In.

Video

For Aims Community College, creating a video that flips the script on who they are and what they offer was a critical next step in rallying a local and national audience of perspective and current students, staff, and the community. After partnering with idfive on an award-winning brand, “All In” tagline, mascot, and marketing materials, Aims possessed a more cohesive and effective messaging platform to articulate the Aims advantage.

With a 90-second montage of students in experiential learning environments at multiple locations and state-of-the-art facilities—including commercial-grade flight simulators, maker spaces, and a new community welcome center, idfive was able to help Aims shatter the common perception of “community college.” Our video production team helped Aims go “All In” and be recognized as a first choice option and leader in higher education.

Building a universal brand for astrophysics.

Deep space photograph displays a distant star cluster and nebula

Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Home Work Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Challenge

Since its founding over half a century ago, the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian became one of the leading astronomy and astrophysics centers in the world. But brilliant research didn’t necessarily translate into a brand that told a clear story of who they are and how their discoveries continue to expand humanity’s knowledge of our universe.

Research

We began our engagement with CfA with a two-pronged approach, reviewing existing communications and interviewing some of their top researchers and leadership. To gain an outside view, we also interviewed research partners, funders, and advisory board members. We had two clear goals in mind: understand the CfA, and find out how they’re perceived by the world.

850+

Researchers and staff.

For a life-long space nerd like me, working with CfA was an amazing experience. It was such an incredible privilege to get to interview some of the leading astronomers and astrophysicists in the world and learn more about the discoveries CfA has made and continues to make every day. I know all of us at idfive are immensely proud of the fact that our work is helping CfA tell their story better so they can continue to expand humanity’s understanding of the universe.

Sean Carton

Chief Strategist

Strategy

Our research revealed two key data points: 1) The CfA is regarded as one of the world’s leading astrophysics organizations; but 2) nobody really understood their structure, and that misunderstanding often led to difficulties in securing funding or recruiting scientists. They were doing some of the most amazing science in the world, but outsiders were confused about who was doing it.

Branding

We realized that in order to tell the true story of CfA, their name had to change. We wanted it to communicate CfA’s preeminent position in astronomy and astrophysics while communicating the equity of Harvard’s and the Smithsonian’s contributions. The new name – The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian did exactly that, emphasizing science over structure.

Design

We wanted to create a visual presentation of the new name to reflect the CfA’s long commitment to science and collaborative discovery. The symbolic gradient of the logo is reminiscent of a stellar spectrum—a key tool of astronomy instantly recognizable by their external audiences—while the logo’s contemporary typography speaks to both today and tomorrow’s discoveries.

CFA RED

CFA VIOLET

Website

The redesigned CfA website, published in March 2021, features copy guided by updated messaging and a design informed by updated brand visuals. The website’s content strategy puts science first by prioritizing ongoing research via a “Big Questions” section, and highlighting research, people, and facilities within the navigation.

Conclusion

Through all of our work, idfive has helped the CfA navigate a complicated institutional environment to ultimately implement a clear, compelling, and consistent brand that speaks to both internal and external audiences. United and energized by the new brand and marketing, communications, and fundraising tools, the CfA can now focus on the incredible research and discoveries that lie ahead.

Promoting the human side of online learning.

Walden University

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Walden University

Home Work Walden University

The Challenge

Walden University is one of the largest online universities in the world with over 50,000 students in over 120 countries. One of Walden’s core strengths has been developing innovative new modalities and evolving their programs to meet contemporary challenges. When they wanted to launch some of their newest, they turned to idfive for creative approaches driven by research.

Research

It’s tempting to think of “adult learners” as a monolithic category, but both we and Walden understood that nothing could be further from the truth. While most adults going back to school do share similar challenges when it comes to balancing learning with the rest of their lives, what drives them very much depends on their profession, their interests, and their ultimate life goals. Unless we knew them, we couldn’t speak to them.

MSEd

So we got to know them, and the knowledge we gained drove each unique campaign. For the relaunch of the MSEd we learned that if we were going to get noticed we had to break away from the very crowded competitive set by being bold, sounding fresh, and ditching the cliches every other program seemed to be using. Our ads featured bold, single-color backgrounds, exuberant, real-looking people who looked nothing like the ho-hum stock photos featured by other schools, and typography that evoked real-life classroom tools such as notebook paper and blackboards.

Woman standing in front of teal background laughing

MSW

In order to reach out to prospective MSW students we had to take a different approach. For these audiences Walden’s long-time emphasis on social change already resonated: our research showed that “change” was the key word when it came to motivating people to go into social work. The imagery of this campaign focused around images of real students and their stories of how their education would empower them to bring real change to their communities. Using a dark, somewhat muted palette for the background along with strong, simple sans-serif type, the effect was to put the student front and center, projecting power and determination.

Doctoral

Prospective students interested in doctoral programs had similar motivations and shared many of the same characteristics as the prospective MSW students. People interested in earning their doctorates, regardless of the discipline, were driven people determined to make real change, something many had experience with through their work with their communities. These were inspiring people and our campaign reached out to them with a story-driven approach featuring accomplished alumni in close-cropped, eyes-forward poses and short, declarative copy about their accomplishments. The effect was like having an intimate conversation with each, one designed to draw in the prospective student and inspire them to action.

Undergraduate Academy

Our research also showed that adult learners who had committed to returning to finish their undergraduate degrees after being out of school for a long time were pretty determined folks, too. They had to be because they often had to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to gain the education that would help them obtain a better life for themselves and their families. We tested two concepts for the new Undergraduate Academy with them: “It’s Your Turn” focusing on empowering their decision and “Think Again,” a phrase which pivoted on the double meanings of both “thinking again” and using education to reconsider their lives. Walden eventually chose “It’s Your Turn” and the campaign imagery focused on simple shots of “everyday” adults in the target demographic boldly filling the frame over an “It’s Your Turn” watermark background, their eyes raised towards the future drawing the viewer to the straightforward, encouraging, empowering headlines.

Celebration Slate

Cool grey

Graduation Gold

Traditional Teal

Tempo

Finally, our campaign to promote Tempo, Walden’s new self-paced modality for undergraduate learners used straight talk and bold statements to make sure that prospects knew “yeah: you got this” when thinking about completing their degrees. Knowing that employers were taking a more active role in educating their employees as a way of increasing workforce effectiveness and employee retention, our campaign addressed the needs of employers as well, speaking directly to them to emphasize that the program would be ideal for improving the effectiveness of their employees and that their financial support or support offered by giving employees time off to complete their degrees with the Tempo program isn’t a cost: it’s an investment in their own business.

Survey responses for Tempo campaign research

Campaign Optimization

Much of Walden’s media buying is handled by another agency employed strictly to handle those transactions, so idfive collaborated with them and our partners at Walden to create a wide range of formats and executions for all five campaigns. We utilized a wide range of channels in most cases, including traditional banner advertising, social media advertising, email, and, in some cases (eg. the Doctoral campaign) even print collateral such as posters.

Wherever possible, a “test, optimize, focus” approach was used, starting with multiple executions of online ads that varied headlines, imagery, and, in some cases, colors — all within brand and campaign standards, of course — which would run in flights on targeted media. Results were analyzed regularly, often on a daily basis in the early stages, and creative that performed the best replaced creative which did not yield optimal results. Using this method, the campaign was quickly optimized around the most effective ads yielding the greatest response rates.

Alumni Magazine

Walden Magazine, published twice a year for an alumni audience, highlights the contributions that Walden graduates make to their communities and the world. The 2021 Summer/Fall issue—with a theme of Finding and Building Community in a Transformative Time—took the community focus to another level. Walden already had an important story to tell: as a leader and early adopter in online education, they maintained a sense of community throughout the challenges of education in the time of Covid. But in early 2021, both of Walden’s founders, Rita and Bernie Turner passed away.

From Confronting Healthcare Disparities in the LGBTQIA+ Community to Stopping the Spread of Covid-19 in the Navajo Nation, the magazine flips from an expected, somber tone to a celebratory one. With a visual focus on what makes Walden special—people—the 2021 Summer/Fall Walden Magazine both engages its audience and honors the University’s founders in equal measure.

Redefining business school prerequisites.

A woman smiles while standing at podium during a speech in a conference room

Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

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Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

Home Work Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

The Challenge

The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School competes for students in a difficult global market – one that’s gotten even more challenging as economic, political, and demographic forces erode enrollment numbers at business schools nationwide. A decidedly different kind of b-school, Carey looked to focus on both International and domestic students who take a more holistic, mission-based approach to business—fulfilling the Carey mission to “teach business with humanity in mind.”

The Solution

Research/Analysis
Graphic Design
Copywriting
Media
Enrollment Strategy
Branding

Connecting alumni, one moment at a time.

Goucher alumna Mildred Dunnock wears a black feather boa in a striking image used for the Undaunted campaign

Goucher College

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Goucher College

Home Work Goucher College

The Challenge

Goucher College announced its intention to raise $100 million dollars by 2022 for an ambitious campus construction and renovation effort. To do that, it would need to inspire donors, alums, and stakeholders — many who’ve had no contact with the school in years — to reconnect and give. The school’s change from female to co-ed in 1987 and the addition of new degree programs made the challenge of meaningfully engaging alumnae/i even more complex. Despite the significant changes at the school over the decades, leadership believed there was still an emotional thread that connected all Goucher students. The college partnered with idfive to find it — and reignite support for the school’s future.

Decorated event space with large posters

The Solution

Through a comprehensive discovery process, idfive and Goucher College found that what excited alumnae and alumni most was recounting the personal moments at the school that changed the trajectory of their lives. It could have been the day they chose to explore a new discipline, a lesson learned in defeat, or an opportunity to stand up and speak their mind.

Inspired by these stories of students taking their first tentative steps despite the uncertainty that lay ahead of them, we developed Goucher Undaunted, a comprehensive online and offline fundraising effort. Each of the campaign’s tactics invites audiences to remember the moments that matter to them while asking them to support the moments-to-come for future students. A giving page features stories of Goucher alumnae/i plotting the moments and places on an interactive campus map. A video shared over social media and during the campaign’s opening gala expresses Goucher’s underlying legacy. And a series of digital and print assets communicate the Goucher Undaunted mission.

In the first year, the campaign has already raised half the funds it needs while giving alumnae/i a reason to reconnect with Goucher College and each other.

Branding

The Goucher experience is marked by shared experience, combined with a signature bold approach to liberal arts education. The Goucher Undaunted emblem reflects that purpose and rallying cry.

The yellow color of the surrounding box and highlighted “UN” represent Goucher’s influence on the lives it touches. Goucher as a contained place and unified concept is comprised of the same lasting element that capacitates the magic “UN”ning moment that summarizes the Goucher experience.

Undaunted Blue

Undaunted Gray

Undaunted Yellow

Goucher Blue

Accent Blue

The Result

The campaign reached half of the total goal in its first year while giving alumnae/i a reason to reconnect with Goucher College—and each other.

A paw-sitively cute anniversary campaign.

A young woman holds a small black and white puppy

Maryland SPCA 150th Anniversary

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Maryland SPCA 150th Anniversary

Home Work Maryland SPCA 150th Anniversary

The Challenge

Guided by a multi-year strategic plan, the Maryland SPCA is driven to grow their services and strengthen relationships with key audiences, including previous donors and millennials. Approaching their 150-year anniversary, the organization saw the 2019 year as a momentous time in their history to double down and re-energize their base. To do so, they needed to create an engaging visual system for the anniversary year and align the messaging platform with the future of the brand—all while honoring their fruitful legacy.

The Solution

Partnering with the Maryland SPCA, idfive designed a visual identity for the 150-year anniversary that includes a suite of logo marks and a flexible texture pattern. The designs balance the simplicity and refinement of the organization’s legacy with a clever playfulness, appealing to both millennial and older donors who have a strong connection with the traditional brand and legacy. Available in a variety of flexible forms and styles, the designs can be incorporated into a number of marketing pieces, including event promotional materials, merchandise, social media, and a Van-Wrap for the organization’s new mobile vet station, adoption center, and promotional vehicle.

Gamescape 2017: Camp Artscape

Cutout illustration of the University of Baltimore bee mascot holding binoculars, part of the event decorations for Gamescape designed by idfive

UB Gamescape 2017

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UB Gamescape 2017

Home Work UB Gamescape 2017

The Challenge

For the third consecutive year, idfive partnered with the University of Baltimore to create a branded outdoor environment for Gamescape, the indie gaming expo the school holds as an addition to the free arts festival, Artscape. The event is a major marketing opportunity for the school, and each year the goals are the same: develop a theme that’s complementary to Artscape and the University’s brand; attract visitors by driving them to the expo inside the university building; and to think bigger than the year before.

The Solution

Gamescape 2017’s theme tied together the festival’s Camp Artscape theme with Gamescape’s celebration of video game technology. Dozens of props, cardboard photo-ops, and a 40’ window cling set the scene for what was called The Mystic Lands of Gamescape—a cross between classic American camping aesthetics and fantasy adventure video games.

The event was a major hit, with hundreds of visitors being drawn into the event and flooding social media with photos of the unique environment. Phone-charging stations and branded handouts like water bottles and sunglasses attracted additional visitors, while a scavenger hunt designed and implemented by idfive let them explore Gamescape, win prizes and challenge their friends to fun games.

There’s more where that came from. Explore our website, meet our team, and learn about idfive.

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