MISSION:
CUNY Arts is an initiative of the City University of New York founded to create opportunities for all students to experience the richness of New York City’s arts and cultural institutions. Build an integrated media and communications plan to promote CUNY Arts to the CUNY student body and increase its awareness.
UNLOCKED INSIGHT:
CUNY Arts can open doors for your future. It affords CUNY students the ability to open up their worlds and have more opportunities.
GAME PLAN:
Get CUNY students to change their attitude toward the arts from “I don’t get it” to “I can relate.” CUNY Arts can make art more accessible by piquing their curiosity through art-related experiences; let’s make art less intimidating.
The University recognizes that exposure to the arts improves students’ critical thinking skills, broadening their ability to think strategically, while acknowledging the absence of the arts in most of higher education.
BUT FIRST...A REBRAND!
Current Logo
Bear with me here...
TA-DA!
But wait...There's more!
Design System
But why?
Our team felt that CUNY Art's branding felt confusing and did not have visual ties to the CUNY school system.
CREATIVE CAMPAIGN PILLARS
Cognitive
With this pillar, we wanted to make culture and arts psychologically within reach. By shifting the mindset we can shift behavior.
Tangible
For this pillar, we wanted to make culture and arts physically within reach. By seeing and interacting with art and culture, it can become familiar and approachable.
Launching On-Campus
It all starts on campus with a guerrilla “art” execution; spearheaded by the various campus art departments in association with CUNY Arts. There will be CUNY Arts Access branded art plaque stickers strategically affixed to peculiar arts and cultural symbols around the campuses. This tactic is geared to elicit curiosity. These stickers will bear the CUNY Arts Instagram handle (@cunyarts) and students (and professors) will be led by inquisitiveness and be moved to inquire more via our Instagram/Twitter handle.
Instagram Extension
Now that we have piqued the students' curiosity and have persuaded them
to the social media accounts, we’ll have an Instagram extension with humorous short captions and an educational account where we share the actual explanations of the perplexing art found around our partner institutions. We will also instruct students on where to locate the fixtures and that they will have free access with a CUNY Arts ID.
to the social media accounts, we’ll have an Instagram extension with humorous short captions and an educational account where we share the actual explanations of the perplexing art found around our partner institutions. We will also instruct students on where to locate the fixtures and that they will have free access with a CUNY Arts ID.
Culture in Real-Time
Culture in Real-Time is a series of short online videos introducing interesting art pieces or cultural events, showing the surroundings and location of the museum or cultural institution. It’s short enough to drive curiosity and pique interest, but informative enough to address questions about location and access.
Interactive Social Toolkit
We’ll also arm students with a social media toolkit for understanding art and culture by showing students how we use it ourselves. The toolkit includes:
“I don’t get it” and “Ohhhh got it” Instagram story stickers with subtle CUNYArts branding to use when they take a photo of the art they find interesting, but haven’t yet formed a full opinion on. With the #IDontGetIt hashtag, used in conjunction with #CUNYArts, we can respond with authority on what the art means or the cultural significance of the performance.
“I don’t get it” and “Ohhhh got it” Instagram story stickers with subtle CUNYArts branding to use when they take a photo of the art they find interesting, but haven’t yet formed a full opinion on. With the #IDontGetIt hashtag, used in conjunction with #CUNYArts, we can respond with authority on what the art means or the cultural significance of the performance.
#OverheardCUNYArts
We can start an #Overheardcunyarts hashtag where students can post the interesting, funny, and probably puzzling things they’ve overheard about art in a museum or other cultural activity. As a prize, we can raffle off high-ticket arts events (like Broadway), or a CUNYArts kit once a semester.
Out of Home
To help with awareness, we will have OOH advertising in subway stations giving a glimpse of the cultural institution, where it’s located, and the importance of their student ID.
On-Campus Flyers
We will create flyers that CUNY Arts can distribute around campus locations to get more student awareness
BONUS ROUND:
Mini-CUNY Museum Pop-Up
We will host Mini Museum Campus Popups, creating art and cultural experiences at various CUNY campuses. We will have multiple photo booths of the famous museum art pieces on campus that are Instagram worthy asking students to write about their understanding on social media/on a board next to it.
At our tangible events, we will have some paraphernalia for the CUNY ID inside an information pamphlet for the art on display. The ID holder will feature the names of the affiliated cultural institutions.
We will ask students to submit their original artwork or photography to print into postcards, given out in the mini museums. Each postcard will have the CTA for students to visit CUNYArts online handles and eventually the affiliated museums and institutions.
CREDITS:
Account - Nicole Alexander, Roxie Xie
Strategy - Roxie Xie, Sanjana Chowdhury
Creative Director - Carmen Quang
Art Direction - Kenneth Medina, Diana Arutyunyan, Carmen Quang
Copywriting - Carmen Quang, Kenneth Medina
Public Relation - David Puccio, Everett Mitchell, Marissa Bramwell
Comms Planner - David Puccio
