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The Blum Center for Developing Economies is home to a new Masters and PhD Concentration in Development Engineering. They needed to create a cohesive brand identity and media storytelling package to share their mission to recruit students and secure funding. First, we developed a brand guide to unify their communications going forward. Then we produced a 3-minute mission video and series of social media shorts that showcased the value of Development Engineers and their impact on the world.
We began with a narrative development workshop that brought all of the core program stakeholders together. Students and faculty had been attracted to the idea of development engineering for a variety of reasons. Mid-career professionals had dissatisfaction with traditional engineering jobs. Undergraduates had the desire to bridge engineering knowledge with social impact. Faculty had a hunger to develop culturally appropriate solutions for the problems facing low resource communities around the world. Through in person dialogue and online surveys, we gathered diverse inputs and synthesized them into a unified voice that established a set of core values for the program.
Our goal was to define how and why one would embark on the journey to become a Development Engineer.
After presenting and refining our findings, we built a brand deck. Cohesive and consistent messaging is essential for growth, especially in the competitive graduate degree market. With communications going out across email, web, in-person events, and socials, it was crucial that the program’s written and visual identity be clearly defined and uniform. Once this brand deck was approved by all stakeholders, we moved on to media generation.
Development Engineering is about tailoring technical solutions to fit in diverse contexts. Alumni work across all economic sectors and geographic regions of the globe. To showcase the impact of the program, we needed to efficiently use our budget to cover the diversity of their amazing work. We interviewed over a dozen staff, faculty, and students past and present. We filmed water purifying prototypes destined for India in state of the art labs on campus. We visited rooftop gardens in Oakland where students learned about the importance of food sovereignty right in the University’s front yard. We sent GoPro kits to India and Kenya with students working in the field. All of this nimble production allowed us to build a dynamic media library for the client.
With a project of this scope, we always work to build a content library for the client that goes beyond just the deliverables in the initial scope of work. Since we were sitting down with such a diverse collection of students, faculty, and staff, we structured our interviews to capture a broad collection of soundbites that would allow for multiple future assets. Our aim with this philosophy is to give the client the most bang for their buck.
The main deliverable was a core mission video for their homepage, showcasing the core elements and values that make this program stand out.
By casting the net wider in our interviews and b-roll capture, we were able to maximize production days and deliver future value to the client.
The brand deck and video content library didn’t just give the Blum Center a set of resources to communicate the Development Engineering program’s value. It also allowed them to internally clarify their voice. It gave them the tools to continue to share their story after working with us. This is something that we see frequently with clients, and love to help them develop. The seemingly simple need to create a mission video can turn into a deeper storytelling exercise. Nothing helps define a mission better than really having to communicate it!
