Work That Stirs the Heart
What motivates a person to respond to a blog post, social ad or video? The answer is deceptively simple: captivating creative work. We humans respond to the content campaigns, the social media trends, and the calls to action that stir our hearts. The following work samples offer you a solid feel for the brand of creativity that comes from thoroughly considered marketing strategy and original ideas, glued together by a deep insight into human nature. This is the breed of fresh thinking you and your team can expect from Greg The Fine.
PORTFOLIO 1
Great Basin National Park Foundation
In-park Campaign Captures A Captive Audience
In a Nutshell: Capitalizing on an environment or particular setting can boost your campaign’s impact.
Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” For the Great Basin National Park Foundation, leveraging the environment surrounding the in-park campers creates an opportunity to spur impulse donations and build brand awareness.
The Story Behind the Work
Working closely with the Foundation’s executive director to bring her vision to life, we developed a series of in-park posters that are displayed at the entrance to each of Great Basin National Park’s six campgrounds. The goal: Talk to campers who are enjoying their Park adventures – essentially, speak to a captive, engaged audience at the peak of their enjoyment - and motivate giving.
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Having created dozens of out-of-home billboards and signage campaigns, there is one steadfast rule: the message and visuals must be simple and recognizable from a distance. The work needs to grab attention but not overwhelm. Plus, I’m a HUGE fan of the “Go Climb A Rock” marketing that Yosemite National Park did about 25 years ago, which was wildly successful and deceivingly simple. (I want one of those “Take A Hike” t-shirts. If you have a line on one - tee me up!) Highly visual and intriguing from a distance, the posters (created by MeshCreative) deliver their punch once the camper wanders closer to satisfy their curiosity. Each poster reflects a specific Park feature supported by the Foundation, with a direct “Join Us!” call to action QR code that camera-ready campers can take a snap of. The campaign will be released Summer of 2024.
PORTFOLIO 2
Travel Nevada
“Don’t Fence Me In” – Free-Range Marketing at Its Finest
In a Nutshell: Nonprofits have powerful, story-rich content campaigns. Unlocking these gems builds relationships with donors, volunteers, and stakeholders.
Every brand, nonprofit and for-profit alike, is rich with stories. Discovering and shaping them into relatable narratives and then leveraging them into audience-building magnets makes marketing so rewarding. Nonprofits with powerful, story-rich content campaigns know how stories build relationships with donors, volunteers and stakeholders.
The Story Behind the Work
As director of marketing for the State of Nevada’s Division of Tourism, my team and I relished introducing the “Don’t Fence Me In” marketing campaign.
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A full-throated, multi-faceted effort deployed across virtually every media channel, “Don’t Fence Me In” bubbled with personality and charm through the stories we told. The team and our advertising agency captured color commentary on a host of local characters and tied them to locations in well-known and not-so-well-know locations throughout the state. It was storytelling and marketing at their finest. The many smaller, rural communities we spotlighted benefitted handsomely from the economic boost from the many curious visitors who responded to the outreach.
PORTFOLIO 3
Carson Valley Visitors Authority
Smart Marketing Strategy Leads to A Layered, Cost-Effective Content Campaign
In a Nutshell: Planning for all opportunities before creating your content campaign lets you wring every penny from your stories while giving you material for a range of marketing channels.
The carpenter’s adage “Measure twice, cut once” kind of applies to a thoughtfully strategized content campaign. Only, in this instance, you’re concepting, shooting and writing once and editing different iterations to meet your needs while extending your budget.
The Story Behind the Work
The Legends campaign highlights the special folks who call Carson Valley, Nevada, home. Several characters, from a stunt pilot to a mountain biker to a whisky maker to a wild horse photographer, were identified as the perfect personalities to give visitors a behind-the-scenes flavor of the region.
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Working with the Carson Valley Visitors Authority, a small nonprofit that promotes the region, we crafted a marketing strategy that maximized a limited budget. We planned for all the channels used in the campaign - email, social media, print and sales collateral - and then captured video and still photography that was repurposed across all the platforms. In other words, we shot once and edited a multitude of times. You can see the additional edits here and here of the JT Humphrey campaign developed to meet the channel specifications. The upfront planning allowed my team and I to create a cohesive storyline while minimizing the creative team’s involvement to save on labor costs.
The campaigns were exceptionally popular with the target audiences. The heroes developed minor cult followings, which only broadened the campaigns' effectiveness.
OBSERVATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES