Expanding Education Beyond Our Doors

In 2009, Northern Virginia Family Service (NVFS), a leading community services provider acquired the rights to market a multicultural education program. They secured a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop an online training platform that would bring expert multicultural training programs to social service providers, educators, law enforcement officers, and allied industries that needed to work with diverse populations.

The new program needed a defined mission, a name that was separate from NVFS,  a promotional program, and marketing materials.

Red Thinking was brought in by senior NVFS leadership to help develop this new brand. The NVFS team explained that they had developed an online training platform and that their specific needs were to market the multicultural aspect of the training and to establish the new program as a national center of excellence.

Red Thinking structured a multi-phase program to first develop a new name and visual identity, pull that new identity throughout marketing materials and web content, and devise and run an online marketing and advertising program.

Step 1: And the Winner is?

Red Thinking’s brand building includes expert name development. The staff performed a competitive search for similar programs, researched the needs of the marketplace, and even developed fictional customer avatars.

Cyndy Dailey, Director of Multicultural Services said, “I know these people you’ve created are only based on characteristics but are exactly like people we know.”

Once Red Thinking established the audience and tone for the new center they began researching names and presented NVFS staff with options. The new center name became The Caravel Institute for Multicultural Education. A Caravel is a 15^th Century Portuguese sailing ship, like the type Columbus used to explore the world. The ship’s use changed how the Western world interacted with Asia, Africa, and the New World. It opened a world of cultural differences to the European. The name reflects the same spirit of exploration and culture that the new center hopes to provide.

With name chosen, the design staff began its creative work and a multicolored design based on a ship’s sail was selected.  The colors give the center a large palette to work with and represent diversity.

Step 2: Reaching the Nation

Red Thinking’s promotion strategy was based on reaching an online audience, the same people who would be interested in online classes. A Facebook and Google Adwords campaign was set up and augmented with an aggressive public relations press release promotion schedule, and traditional print advertisement. Red Thinking was able to canvas multiple venues to drive traffic to the website to inform potential students about the program. Additionally, Red Thinking helped develop an important contact with the local state university and the Caravel program will be able to provide important CEUs to its students.

Step 3: Putting Words and Images Together

The Red Thinking team developed messaging that was used to create fact sheets, marketing brochures, and web content. A visual identity set was also created to help the Caravel staff create their own material for presentations, sales letters, and ad-hoc marketing.

“Red Thinking did a tremendous job with the branding,” said Dailey. The Caravel Team now has the tools it needs to continue to deliver training to customers in Northern Virginia and across the nation.