ChildFund began in 1938 in Richmond, VA. Founded by Dr. J. Calvitt Clarke, it was originally called China’s Children Fund (CCF), and was created to help children displaced by the second Sino-Japanese War. The “child sponsorship” concept we know today stemmed from Dr. Clarke’s vision: one sponsor donates one amount to help one child.
We have had the pleasure of working with the Visual Arts Center of Richmond for several years. Recently they introduced an amazing new program, Creativity at Work. It’s a twice yearly, intensive workshop that brings together artists and business leaders (present and future) to explore the creative process and apply it to workplace challenges. In today’s global marketplace, the ability to bring fresh thinking and innovative ideas to the table will be critical for success. As one of the area’s leading creative resources, VisArts is helping to shape business leaders – and the future of our community. Pretty cool, huh? To learn more about it, go to www.visarts.org.
We recently completed an exciting project in collaboration with Virginia Tourism Corporation and our friends at Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitor’s Bureau (RMCVB) and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. With the main goal to promote the Grand Opening of the VMFA museum expansion on May 1, we created a special edition of the “History” campaign that will be installed in the Gallery Place station in the DC Metro.
For the past couple of years, we’ve been designing St. Catherine’s School’s catalog for their popular summer program, Cat’s CAP. This year, things are a bit different as Cat’s CAP is now part of an expanded summer program called Brilliant Summer. It will continue to offer all of the greatness the community has come to expect, but now with even more offerings from sports and dance to academic enrichment courses. As always, it was a pleasure working with the folks over at St. Catherine’s School and the result was a beautiful and newly designed catalog (with spot gloss varnished cover!).
We had the exciting opportunity to work with Rutherfoord on their 2009 Year in Review. Rutherfoord continues to grow as one of the nation’s largest insurance brokerage and risk management firms. The theme for the publication was “beyond borders” and our objective was to highlight Rutherfoord’s strength in venturing beyond the familiar – removing barriers, uncovering opportunities, opening possibilities and taming risk on behalf of their clients.
For over 20 years, Better Housing Coalition has been changing lives and transforming communities through high quality affordable housing. BHC is nationally recognized for its innovative approach, from building green to providing support services that help each neighborhood flourish. In 2009, BHC launched its annual leadership awards, to honor those whose leadership inspires positive change in the greater Richmond community (and to raise money, in case you’re looking for a worthy cause to support). In 2010, BHC decided to name the event/awards Groundbreakers, and asked JHI to develop a logo that would be an extension of the BHC brand (which JHI also developed). The final choice was a colorful constellation of shovels, illustrating the endless and wonderful possibilities that can happen when we all dig in and help.
J H I teamed up with Hamilton Beach to create a series of print and online ads to promote 2 fabulous Hamilton Beach products: the Stay or Go Slow Cooker and the Brewstation. We refined their existing look to create 6 online ads and 2 print ads that ran in national publications such as Martha Stewart Living and Everyday with Rachel Ray. See the results below the jump!
At J H I, we have the pleasure of working with many clients across various industries. You can imagine why we love our jobs – it never gets stale! We have a long standing relationship with the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (RMCVB) and developed their current “History” advertising campaign.
Our clients at RMCVB recently approached us with a new demographic to target – the GLBT community. We immediately got to work on the new ad concept, “History. Open for all.” We used Richmond residents as our models and had the photo shoots in Carytown and at Stronghill Dining Company (which is delicious too!).
A central location to share and obtain information; it makes so much sense until you realize that the “marketing volume” is at a confusing, brain-melting level. A classic and definable example of how way too much information shuts down the viewer. There is often so much to see that we can see nothing at all! We switch into self-protection mode and use our internal volume knob to turn down the experience to a more manageable level…but what is lost in the act of doing this may be the most valuable information of all.
We think that the correct strategy (in support of our “keep it focused and simple” philosophy) is to create an island of calm in the chaos. Control the experience. Offer a logical visual and auditory conversation so that the prospect gets just the message you want them to get. Don’t ask them figure it out…their brain was exhausted soon after they entered the show!
The trade show can be an extremely effective marketing investment if well conceived and executed. Let’s discuss your next event…
