When a project is a true game-changer on the national playing field, you can feel it from the start. Our work with The Great American Rail-Trail certainly fit that category.
We were proud to play a key role in developing a branding campaign to support the unveiling and introduction of The Great American Rail-Trail — our country's first truly connected coast-to-coast trail project spanning nearly 4,000 miles from Washington, D.C., to Washington State, and a flagship project of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC).
Leading up to the trail's completion and national introduction, RTC's goals were to ignite excitement about the project, which they call "their most ambitious yet," to generate awareness for their organization, and to promote fundraising and advocacy.
Using a combination of substantial market research, discovery assessment, and deep internal creative brainstorming, we helped our clients clarify the unique brand concept and developed the comprehensive brand awareness campaign "United We Trail."
A key contributor to the success of the campaign is the fact that the featured tagline can be adapted for multiple applications that appeal to viewers' shared love of the great outdoors through the many potential uses of the trail, as well as to their patriotic spirit with a nod to the galvanizing American Revolution-era phrase "United We Stand."
From there, we created primary and secondary logos along with a compelling visual system for the campaign — including a bold and earthy color palette, typography, images, illustrations, icons, and textures that represents a variety of people and activities on the trail — all of which span diverse applications and provide a unifying brand experience.
Finally, we created a brand brief that defines the audiences and core attributes, details guidelines for use of the brand elements and example applications, and provides a recommended strategy for its integration with the RTC parent and related sub-brands.
Post-launch and throughout its duration, this campaign will play a key role in assisting RTC to drive revenue through new channels, generate support for completing the project, and attract national attention for their mission and brand through multimedia promotion.
