Turnkey marketing partner for a blood center suddenly in need of leadership.
PROJECT
Brand and Marketing Consultant, Agency Partner
PARTNER
The Community Blood Center
ASSIGNMENT
Marketing Consultation
Internal Marketing Team Management
Brand Research + Strategy
Brand Messaging
Campaign Development
Campaign Execution
Video Commercial Production
Motion Graphic Design
Media Buying
Digital Advertising Campaign
Event Photography
Social Media Template Design
Website Design
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Thousands of patients and over 40 hospitals depend on The Community Blood Center (CBC) to provide a reliable blood supply collected at its seven donor centers, four mobile units and over 100 annual blood drives.
The locally-based nonprofit organization brings in more than 50,000 blood donations annually, and marketing has always played a critical role in getting those donors in the door. However, motivating donors comes with its own unique set of challenges. Donating blood takes time, requires overcoming a common fear of needles and rarely comes with financial compensation. Plasma centers and other organizations also compete for the local blood supply, making it all the more important to have an established brand presence and relentlessly engage the community in new and creative ways.
After all, lives are on the line.
A part of the CBC team…
When Unlisted was brought on to partner with The Community Blood Center, recent staff turnovers left the internal marketing team incredibly lean and overwhelmed. Hiring new team members would take time. Our job? To fully immerse ourselves in the blood center’s current processes, active projects, capabilities, and outsourced services. We would need to identify and fill in any gaps and make suggestions for improvements, all while managing and delegating to the internal team.
In less than a week, Unlisted had begun functioning as the primary internal marketing leader as well as many other roles over the course of the next 12 months.
After the initial triage was under control, we assessed which needs would be best suited for outsourcing to our extended network of Unlisted+ experts.
ROLES
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Unlisted worked closely with leadership and participated in meetings with board members to review efficacy of current and previous brand/marketing strategies, including detailed analytics of ad campaigns and other marketing materials.
We then provided multiple reports identifying opportunities for new marketing tactics and brand evolutions to help CBC meet ad exceed both short- and long-term goals.
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The internal marketing team was without a direct supervisor, so while the executive team began searching for someone to fill the marketing director role, we initiated immersion sessions to ensure we could pick up where the the former supervisor left off.
Moving forward, we helped lead the team and CBC’s marketing efforts over the course of the 12 months until they successfully found a new marketing director.
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In addition to the marketing director, the blood center was in the process of looking to hire someone for their creative director role. To help, we stepped in and functioned as the interim creative director while also working with the executive team to define the job requirements for the new position.
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During the onboarding process, we identified some inconsistencies in the brand’s voice and visual identity. Not only was this diluting the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, but it was inefficient because every piece of collateral was being created from scratch without the use of pre-approved brand assets.
Our recommendation was to develop a robust set of brand guidelines and templates that would allow the marketing team to easily scale its capabilities both internally and when outsourcing work to contractors.
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Graphic design and brand development are cornerstones of Unlisted’s services, so when the internal team got overwhelmed and needed additional or specialized design or copywriting support, we easily took it on.
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The blood center had an unfilled role for a digital ad specialist months before Unlisted was engaged. We reviewed their digital campaigns and found them dormant and out of date – from there, we evolved their digital ad efforts with a new strategy, dynamic creative and audience segmentation.
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Before the internal social media manager went on maternity leave, we worked with them to understand the content calendar, tagging strategy and community engagement protocols to ensure minimal disruption to this important CBC audience.
1M+
potential donors reached in 2022
$77k
in ad space purchased as the media buyer
project hours worked
1033
104
5
projects managed
through completion
internal team members managed as the marketing team lead
months covered while CBC exec team filled leadership roles
13
…and agency of record.
Every year, The Community Blood Center develops and executes summer and winter campaigns encouraging people to donate during times when donations are statistically the lowest. Traditionally, these campaigns were developed internally, but in the current situation, adding a huge project to the internal team’s workload was unrealistic. There was also a strong desire from CBC executive leadership to infuse new creative concepts and ideas for these campaigns.
For workflow and budget purposes, our solution was to essentially outsource those projects to Unlisted as an external agency. Operating as both the internal marketing director and presenting marketing agency would help us execute the summer campaign as an independent project with a more finite scope of work and dedicated budget.
ROLES
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When developing the campaign strategy, our goal was to focus on classic summer activities that Midwesterners cherish to help conjure empathy for those who might never be able to live those experiences without the gift of life that blood donors can give.
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During the brainstorming session, concepting, production and overseeing external contractors, we were entrenched in the visual execution of each tactic and meticulously oversaw every detail of the campaign from start to finish. To help us meet the aggressive timelines, we were careful to create a thorough proof of concept to help minimize any roadblocks once we moved into the production phase.
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We knew messaging would play at least an equally important role in connecting with potential donors, which is why we developed the messaging in-house in tandem with the visuals to help create a natural, organic cohesiveness that felt genuine and relatable.
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Once the creative concept was approved, we quickly moved into producing each of the tactics including posters, billboards, print ads, Google display ads, social media ads, organic social content, radio ads and cable television commercials.
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Digital and social ads were barely utilized in past campaigns, so we saw it as an opportunity to reach a newer, younger audience of potential donors — a major objective of CBC’s growth plan.
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Media Buying isn’t a core service Unlisted provides, but we were able to jump in and secure upcoming media spots (billboard, cable, radio and digital) in a highly competitive election year before ultimately outsourcing it to a contracted media buyer through the Unlisted+ network.
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When CBC’s summer campaign went to market, there was a need for a competent video motion designer to produce broadcast-quality television and social media spots. Through the Unlisted+ network, we procured and oversaw a motion graphics developer that would bring our designs to life. Together we created multiple spots and coordinated with the media channels to get them the formats they needed in a timely manner.
Learn more about Unlisted+ here.
The CBC Summer Campaign
OPPORTUNITIES
With donation centers and mobile units that cover a majority of Wisconsin and Chicago, CBC is not limited to geography and has a massive donor base available to target.
Traditionally, CBC leaned heavily on its call center to schedule donations, but the success had been declining year after year. Our research revealed that its younger donor base had become annoyed by the cold calls.
CHALLENGES
Summer was approaching quickly, and the triage of other important CBC projects led to some campaign kick-off delays, so not only would our timeline need to be aggressive, but the concept would have to flesh out flawlessly across all tactics without hiccups.
The blood and plasma donation market is saturated; there are many organizations all competing for the same limited resource, and nearly every campaign idea has been done before. Creating a campaign that’s clever and engaging enough to motivate people with busy summer schedules isn’t easy, especially when there are little to no monetary incentives.
SOLUTION
Campaigns for blood donation typically take a serious approach, but our strategy was to use a more hopeful lens, focusing on the memorable summer moments each blood recipient experiences as a result of their donation.
We saw the previously heavy focus on traditional media as an opportunity to move more of the budget and emphasis to digital ads.
New media, along with imagery and messaging tailored to be more engaging to all ages of prospective donors, set CBC up to successfully get new and younger donors in the door.
Your blood donation, their summer.
THE MESSAGING
In an industry plagued by heavy-hearted messaging, we set out to reimagine the way people thought about blood donation. Instead of simply reiterating that it saves lives, we wanted to connect the audience to the individuals receiving the blood. After all, a cornerstone of CBC is that it provides blood to the local community,
By conjuring a series of iconic summer memories that many people regard as sentimental, our goal was to tap into the audience’s empathy, helping them understand that an hour of their time and just a pint of their blood could directly result in someone else’s experience of a lifetime.
THE VISUALS
The campaign’s key visuals consist of an iconic blood bag containing a variety of summer moments. By visually linking the two, we immediately reinforced the core message that every blood donation is the direct equivalent of gifting someone a fun summer experience. Depending on the channel or application, it would be represented as a summer compilation in multiple bags or just one stand-alone moment.
Not only was this graphic approach efficiently executed using images and videos, but it was dynamic enough to be adapted for TV, digital, outdoor and print ads.
Visual Concept Execution
SELECTING IMAGERY
Kicking off in the winter prevented us from capturing original summer photography, so we chose to utilize stock photos and videos.
BUILDING A LIBRARY
To help the project stay on its expedited schedule, we selected hundreds of images to be pre-approved by the client in order to move quicker through the execution phase.
DEVELOPING GRAPHICS
We designed a photo-realistic vector blood bag that could easily be updated with photos or videos from our customized image library and scaled to any size depending on the deliverable.
CUSTOMIZING IMAGES
Although we were using stock images with disparate styles and lighting, we meticulously edited and color matched the entire library to make it look cohesive and on brand.
A TV commercial that tugs at heart strings, lightly.
Oftentimes, what makes a great campaign concept is how seamlessly it translates across different types of tactics. At Unlisted, every potentially viable idea we come up with is vetted through a proof-of-concept process before being presented to the client to ensure the visuals and messaging resonate at every touchpoint to help reduce production roadblocks.
Early on, we learned the cornerstones of their media efforts were cable TV, streaming services and jumbotrons at major sporting events, so we were considering the execution of the TV spot’s storyboard as one of the initial elements of the campaign. We developed everything from the messaging and script to the design and video selection. Ultimately, we sourced a motion designer and animator from our Unlisted+ network and oversaw the execution of development, including formatting it and trafficking it to all the media channels directly.
PRINT COLLATERAL
We designed the print campaign based on a set of customizable templates that allowed the internal marketing team and outside vendors the ability to easily update the graphics and text to tailor the collateral to our specific markets and audiences without sacrificing the integrity of the layouts — an approach Unlisted takes whenever possible to allow for greater efficiency and consistency in branding efforts regardless of who’s responsible for the final execution.
However, for the higher-visibility and larger format collateral, Unlisted custom-designed each piece to ensure it was perfectly optimized for each format, ad space and audience.
Sometimes even old-school collateral deserves a little refresh.
Although we’re typically not big advocates for direct mail and cold calls or texts, the Community Blood Center still relies on them to reach its older audiences. We updated their mailers with the new campaign creative and worked with their call center staff to create a library of on-brand text messages to be used during the summer.
Digital Execution
Once we were engaged, we quickly noticed that all of the campaigns had lapsed and were inactive, leaving a significant percentage of their audience unreached. We did an expedited audit and optimization of their strategy, messaging and audience segmentation and quickly got the campaigns back online using the new summer campaign creative. Additionally, we introduced them to dynamic responsive ads, which ended up being 900% more effective than the static display ads they had always used in the past.
PAID DIGITAL ADS
ORGANIC SOCIAL
Many brands don’t have a content or visual strategy for their social media, resulting in their feeds looking off-brand, messy and chaotic.
The blood center’s was no different, allowing us the opportunity to plan the summer campaign content calendar and a 36-post “takeover” grid to be used on the current social accounts with the goal of grabbing followers’ attention and providing them with all the information they need to plan their donations.
Community Engagement
Unlisted worked with the marketing team to create a strategy to engage the local community to rally around the importance of blood donation, especially during the summer when donation rates are at their lowest. We took an integrated approach that combined online and offline tactics to maximize reach. This involved setting up social media campaigns to raise awareness, partnering with local community groups and businesses to organize blood drives and working with local media outlets to promote the cause.
CBC Making Summer Moments Swag
To help incentivize summer donations, we hand-selected a collection of branded swag designed to represent and be used in making new summer memories.
2x Summer
Donor Giveaway
To further incentivize donors to Commit to 2 in ‘22, anyone who donates blood twice between the months of May and September can be entered into a drawing to win a large ticket item such as a bicycle.
CONCLUSION
Through integrating a variety of tactics, including social media, email campaigns, and billboards, The Community Blood Center experienced record numbers for blood donation appointments and saw a marked increase in blood donations overall. Not only did this campaign successfully hit the CBC's donation goals, but it also set a precedent for how the organization could better execute its brand for future marketing efforts. By developing a more cohesive visual identity, consistent messaging, and engaging media formats, Unlisted helped the CBC establish a stronger and more recognizable brand presence that will carry the CBC's mission forward for years to come.