For Slate Bar and Grill, we created a fun, hip brand, including a logo, identity, and campaign, that would appeal to Boston’s young movers and shakers in the financial industry and beyond.
For the campaign, we leaned into a financial theme, featuring presidents and tongue-and-cheek humor to capture attention, inviting future titans of industry to “eat, laugh, and settle their differences at Slate.”
Public organizations rarely push their marketing teams to take big creative risks, and Ten Feet Tall was more than up to the challenge. We got rolling by heading out to Plainridge Park Casino for a little research. After talking to a few GamseSense advisors, the amazing people trained to help gamblers on the casino floor, a campaign idea was born.
Chip, the star of our multi-pronged campaign, embodied all that is special about the GameSense advisors. He’s a funny, engaging character who imparts “Pearls of GameSense,” tips and advice on how to play smarter. To appeal to a broad audience of recreational to problem gamblers, we knew we had to get the tone exactly right—humorous yet credible. Chip delivered in spades.
We began by coming up with a catchy name, AMP it up! Then we created our own challenge: invite high-school students across the state to research an advanced manufacturing product or innovation and bring it to life in a three-minute video. The best video would win a $5,000 grant for their school.
The beauty of the Amp it up! Challenge is that it made the most of very limited public funds. Our strategy to get kids involved in creating, producing, and sharing their own video content enabled MassDevelopment to save significant media dollars (about $100k to $150k). Hundreds of thousands of students and teachers across the state viewed the videos on various social media channels.
150,000
Unique youtube views
2M+
campaign impressions
1,000+
Students Participated
We knew construction was not a top-of-mind career for most women. Yet many women work in other physically demanding jobs that offer less income, benefits, and work/life balance. So we needed to highlight the many perks of a career in construction. We did so with a creative platform—Build a Life That Works—that features real women in the building trades who now enjoy home ownership, more family time, and other fulfilling life experiences made possible by their careers.
We rolled out the campaign with advertising, grassroots events, and brochures for career centers and vocational schools. All campaign components drove prospects to an engaging website where they could learn more about the building trades, read stories about the lives of women in the industry, and connect with an NCTE representative to start building a life that works for them.
4 mins
average time spent on site
1.5x
average number of candidates in first month
The new logo is modern and vibrant, reflecting transformation, while the imagery we chose features real communities that are thriving with MassDevelopment’s help. Through digital campaigns, we demonstrated how MassDevelopment creates a wave of economic prosperity. For example, financing to help a manufacturer expand its operations creates jobs, and those new employees support shops, restaurants, and housing. A single loan or grant has a ripple effect that can be felt across an entire community.
When the rebrand launched, the MassDevelopment team worked tirelessly to move the new brand forward. And they couldn’t have been prouder of the results.
