Spring 2017

Vernon’s Department of Economic Development asked ATION to overhaul its existing marketing strategy. Their strategy included an underdeveloped Twitter account, various brochures for economic development, and an outdated web page on vernon-ct.gov.

Our first meeting with Shaun Gately, the department head, involved a debriefing and an outline of the creative process for the months to come. We gathered our thoughts, constructed an objective and persona, brainstormed creative tactics, and reconvened a couple weeks later.

Our approach was 2-fold. We would create a video for targeting small businesses via social media and TV and a website to direct businesses toward contacting the head of Economic Development.

We pitched this to Shaun Gately, the department head, accompanied by detailed storyboards and mockups. Now it was time to get down to work!

For the video footage we borrowed a drone from a fellow ATION student and flew it all around Vernon. We also rented photography equipment from the Digital Media department to conduct interviews of several small businesses in Vernon. Then in post-production we picked the best clips, did some audio and color correction, added motion graphics, and presented that as a rough cut to the client!
For the single-page website, the process was straightforward. The website was made to look identical to the mockup, and we attached it to a simple content management tool on prismic.io so that our client could easily update anything on his site with a few clicks.