City of Boston | Branding Campaign Case Study

CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENT FOR BOSTON METRO AS PART OF A CITY-WIDE CAREER CENTER REBRAND

Boston truly is one of America’s greatest cities. Rich in both history and innovation, this thriving community and “city of neighborhoods” is a vibrant place to live, work, and play. Throughout 2016, Proof partnered with Boston City Government to develop a brand and applicable campaigns surrounding the city’s employment and career center, highlighting the diverse career opportunities that exist on a city level, and pinpointing through research and development what motivates individuals to work for the city they love.

How We Helped

Through in-person focus groups, interviews, research, and strategic campaign development, our work focused on the development of a key value proposition: “Your Impact, Our Boston.” This message resonates strongly with both current and prospective workers, and highlights what is truly unique about Boston — that what makes it vibrant and unique are its vibrant and unique people. With this value proposition in place, the overall reimagining of Boston.gov is nearing completion, and more importantly, the city is equipped to recruit the best and brightest talent across its many departments and organizations.

Scope

– RESEARCH & STRATEGY
– BRAND STANDARDS & GUIDELINES
– CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENT
– BRAND MESSAGING
– WEBSITE & DIGITAL DESIGN

“Throughout the project, I had every confidence in Proof. They were more than willing to go above and beyond, and, indeed, they did just that and continue to as we roll out our employment value-proposition to the Boston community. The success of our project was important to Proof, and that shined through in everything they did for the city of Boston.”

— Ken Brooks, Program Director at City of Boston

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT OF BRAND VALUE PROPOSITION

Boston is a hub of innovation, an intersection of commerce, a collection of proud, distinct neighborhoods, and a place where dreams come to thrive driven by the force of its most important distinction: its people. Proof traveled to Boston several times throughout the duration of this project to conduct interviews and surveys with city workers and amongst Boston residents. Our goal was to better understand what city employees value, what potential candidates place importance on, and, most importantly, what makes Boston, Boston.

Through our research, surveying, and analysis, our development of the city’s Employment Value Proposition centered on the ideals that came up again and again: the value placed on meaningful, impactful work, and a pride for Boston — its neighborhoods and neighbors. Our final value proposition, “Your Impact. Our Boston,” focuses on both the importance of individual impact and its contribution to making Boston one of the greatest cities in America. With this defined brand identity in place, we began the process of visualizing how the campaign would be received both online and offline.

CAMPAIGN MESSAGING

01 Helpful

All campaign content will be useful, easily understood by all audiences, and relevant.

02 Optimistic

All campaign content will maintain an air of possibility, pairing problems with solutions.

03 Humble

All campaign content will be confident without inserting arrogance, and will avoid verbosity and exaggeration.

04 Personal

All campaign content will be conversational, relatable and direct, with prevalent usage of “you” (or the “understood you”) where possible.

DESIGN OF ONLINE CAREER CENTER

Working collaboratively with Boston’s creative team, we partnered to design two distinct website directions that offer different perspectives on our defined Value Proposition, with one focused on individuals and job diversity, and other other centered on Boston’s vibrant and rich neighborhoods. Following the brand standards set forth by the prior rebranding efforts of Boston.gov, our work focused heavily on developing copy, content, and overall brand messaging that inspires top candidates to apply for a wide range of career opportunities.

AD CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENT

Boston is protected, preserved, and fueled by nearly 20,000 local government employees. From welders to statisticians, housing inspectors to graphic designers, the city has a place for every skillset and every level of experience. Over the course of nearly a year, our research and brand development work culminated in the development of ad concepts that carry out our defined Value Proposition. These concepts focus on showing job diversity, a focus on individual and collective impact, and most importantly, clear calls to action that encourage Boston’s best and brightest to apply and choose to work for the city.