BRANDING SAMPLES PREPARED FOR:

Challenge

The NFL Draft is a fan-driven spectacle and the pinnacle of hope and optimism in professional and collegiate football. In 2018, the NFL Draft tapped 160over90 to help Texas make its Draft debut in Dallas. We crafted a unique and compelling story and brand identity platform that captured the spirit of Dallas, and activated the concept across all marketing touchpoints for the event.

Solution

We built a brand identity that showcased the power and pizazz of the city of Dallas while capturing the excitement and energy of the three-day football festival. We created a fully blown-out brand guidelines toolkit for Dallas that included brand elements (logo/lockups), color palette, brand and team-specific patterns, typography, graphic elements, and photography.

Additionally, the brand guidelines also included application builds/packages for broadcast graphics for NFL Network, in-stadium signage, out-of-home media, Fox Sports and ESPN, urban installations, and even a custom, bespoke font.

Each NFL Franchise was provided with its own toolkit to use when communicating Draft related news, and all vendors were provided with guidelines for events, spaces, and merchandise to ensure a seamless implementation in the stadium and across the immersive 900,000-square-foot NFL Draft Experience.

Results

• The 2018 NFL Draft was the biggest three-day event in league history—pulling in over 400,000 in attendance from all across the country (vs. 250K in 2017).
• It was also the largest Draft in terms of sponsorship activation—totaling 27 sponsors who activated the brand across 900,000-square-foot, 50 Draft-specific licensed products, and over 100 assets.
• The event was televised by the NFL Network, ESPN, and Fox Sports, and raked in over 5.5 million views across three days—up 20% from last year.

Situation

Despite a consistent record of beating teams from so-called power conferences, the A-10 was still perceived as a “mid-major.” After immersing ourselves in the brand, we realized that what binds A-10 teams together is the belief that wins can only be earned through hard work. Our repositioning would herald the end of basketball dynasties resting on their laurels with the idea, “Winning championships is a workright, not a birthright.”

Solution

The brand we developed tells the world, “We’ve got next.” We launched the Next campaign via a powerful 2-minute manifesto commercial that re-energized the existing fanbase and got everyone talking about the conference. This commercial became the cornerstone for a wide-ranging integrated campaign, resulting in tens of millions of impressions and a vastly different perception of the A-10 by sports commentators and peer conferences. We kept the forward momentum with the bold evolution of the Atlantic 10’s identity.

Results

Our work for the A-10 has been recognized with a CLIO Award for integrated campaigns, and was covered by The New York Times and Sports Illustrated. To date, WhoWantsNext. com has over 2 million Twitter impressions, over 4 million social impressions and over 48 million total media impressions.

160over90 partnered with the German discount supermarket chain Lidl to expand its footprint and penetrate the U.S. market for the first time. Lidl is the #1 grocer in Europe and the 4th largest retailer in the world with more than 10,000 stores throughout 27 countries.

Understanding the dramatic shift in grocery with the introduction of online ordering, delivery meal kit services, and new competition, Lidl knew that it had many challenges going into its U.S. launch. Therefore, they engaged 160over90 to develop a brand platform that translated the company’s already successful European philosophy to its U.S. stakeholders, distributors, and customers.

In order to communicate Lidl’s core value proposition of cheaper goods at a higher quality, we developed a brand platform centered around the idea of “Rethink Grocery™.” We saw an opportunity to view discount grocery differently, and to provide precisely what the American shopper was hungry for: change. Rethink Grocery™ is a call to action for shoppers to stop making the same compromises, to stop overthinking the price/quality equation, and to stop shopping at four different grocery stores to find one great deal. To, put simply, shop at Lidl.

Leading up to their Spring 2017 U.S. brand launch, 160over90 was an integral arm of the business, helping to make crucial decisions that impacted not just the design, but the customer and employee experience. We created everything from the HQ environmental design to shopping bags and employee uniforms to advertising campaign creative.