Case Study
Urbandale Community Theatre
BRAND | DIGITAL | PRINT | WEBSITE | NEWSLETTER | VIDEO
Urbandale Community Theatre is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community theatre organization based in Urbandale, Iowa that produces one musical theatrical production every year. I joined the Urbandale Community Theatre Board of Directors in 2017 in the marketing, publicity, and communications chair role. At the time, the brand and website had not been updated for years and were in need of a refresh. Part of the reason I was asked to join the board was to lead this major branding refresh.
I oversaw the new logo design while creating a complete brand style guide based on board member input and stakeholders. I then used that style to wireframe, design, and develop a new website and newsletter. Over the past 5 seasons, I have been responsible for all marketing, publicity, and communication efforts including maintaining brand cohesiveness over all platforms, updating the website, creating and sending out the newsletter, updating social media platforms, public relations, media outreach, live-events planning, and creating new digital and print assets for all productions.
Brand Redesign
When I joined the Urbandale Community Theatre Board of Directors, the brand and website were in need of a major refresh. I lead efforts to give the organization an overhaul including overseeing the development of a new logo; creating a new brand style with colors, fonts, and voice; and pushing out this new brand look across all platforms and channels.
The brand refresh was an opportunity to regain a consistent style throughout the organization and all assets produced by UCT which had, up until that time, not benefitted from any cohesive look or feel across any channels.
I have since fully incorporated the new brand and style into the website, social media, printed materials, internal forms, presentations, with media partners, and in all creative assets.
WEBSITE Design + Development
With the new brand logo and styles, I targeted the website for a refresh. Along with the approval of the Urbandale Community Theatre Board of Directors, I wireframed, designed, and developed the new website, switching it from the Wix platform to a custom theme built on WordPress with all website development standards, accessibility standards, and search engine optimization in mind. Since the launch of the new website, I have been solely responsible for updating the website and content including creative assets and copy using the brand’s voice.
Newsletter Design
Urbandale Community Theatre’s email newsletter is one of its primary methods of outreach. Paired with a mostly older audience, the newsletter design has to incorporate certain considerations such as a straightforward clean design, clear calls to action, and easy-to-read content sections. I lead the efforts on a newsletter design refresh, helping the organization to create several newsletter templates including an announcement template, ticket sales template, volunteer template, last-call template, and more to replace the outdated, busy, confusing emails they were sending previously. With the new designs and considerations in place, the UCT emails saw a marked increase in open and click-through rates to above industry averages.
Digital + Print Production Design
Urbandale Community Theatre produces just one musical every season meaning the success of the production is essential to the organization’s continued success. Since joining the UCT Board of Directors and while serving as the organization’s marketing, public relations, and communications chair, I have been responsible for marketing and promoting each season’s show with no budget.
Those marketing efforts include creating a production branding packet to be used to promote the show while also fitting into the design specifications spelled out in the distribution company contract; planning and executing special promotional events like parades and preview performances; leveraging earned media coverage; designing the show program for the audience; and more.
As mentioned above, each production needs a promotional package that includes assets to be used throughout the marketing process that not only provides consistency for the production but also ties back to the Urbandale Community Theatre brand. Below are examples from several of the production promotional packages I created for UCT – including for Six-on-Six, a production written by a local playwright that allowed for more creativity in creating branding to be used for any future productions – as well as PDF versions of the audience program books I designed.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Primary 11"x17" poster for promotional distribution
Primary social media informational show banner
Primary logo
Parade banner (8' x 2') for Urbandale Fourth of July parade
Primary logo banner for social media channels
Primary poster for promotional distribution
Postcard promotional piece for parades and special events
Six-on-Six: The Musical
Primary poster for promotional distribution
Postcard for promotional distribution
Custom Snapchat filter for geolocation tagging at the theatre venue for performances
Primary logo for standalone pieces without photography elements or on social media channels
Video Production + Editing
Theatre lends itself to video marketing efforts well and Urbandale Community Theatre takes advantage of using video for promotional purposes. In my time as part of the UCT organization, I have recorded hundreds of hours of video for promotional and archival purposes as well as for use by local media outlets. Several examples of the short promotional and informational spots I’ve produced for UCT channels can be found below.
This is a sample of the full scope of work from the Urbandale Community Theatre case study and brand. I can provide further examples upon request. For additional materials, I encourage you to view Urbandale Community Theatre’s website and social media accounts including Facebook and Instagram.