Coastal Alabama Partnership
Designing a marketing campaign and brand kit for Southern Alabama’s premier ecotourism initiative.
‘Express Your Nature’ - a sample of our artwork and branding for the Coastal Alabama Partership’s Mobile-Tensaw River Delta Regional Ecotourism Plan.
Our sustainable tourism consultancy worked with Beyond Green Travel to produce a complete marketing campaign for the Coastal Alabama Partnership in support of their Mobile-Tensaw River Delta Regional Ecotourism Plan.
The Client Relationship and Goal
Beyond Green Travel contacted WhereNext to work on a marketing campaign and brand kit to help promote ecotourism in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta of coastal Alabama as part of a project with the Coastal Alabama Partnership.
The principal goal of Beyond Green Travel and the Coastal Alabama Partnership with this project was to "expand and diversify the opportunities and benefits of tourism in coastal Alabama by developing a regional assessment and plan to link and develop" ecotourism assets, to the benefit of both nature and the local community.
Coastal Alabama is well-positioned to appeal to the US national market and international ecotourism markets with a wealth of natural and cultural heritage experiences. After all, the great biologist E.O. Wilson didn't call the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta "America's Amazon" for nothing.
The Alabama Red-bellied Turtle is the official reptile of the state of Alabama and is one of the featured species of our campaign artwork.
Inspired by historical landmarks, local traditions, native flora, and fauna, WhereNext collaborator, graphic artist Scott Partridge, created the versatile iconography at the core of the brand kit.
In The Field - Scouting Coastal Alabama
In December 2021, WhereNext's Creative Director Gregg Bleakney and Head of Video Julian Manrique traveled with the Beyond Green Travel team to Coastal Alabama on a scouting trip. They spent one week visiting various ecotourism and cultural tourism sites, including Dauphin Island, the Graham Creek Nature Preserve, Gulf State Park, and Africatown. During the scouting trip, they also engaged with local stakeholders to ensure that the marketing campaign and brand kit accurately represented and aligned with community values. Our team also made photos and videos for the development of the brand kit.
The Creative Process
Our scouting trip to visit local ecotourism hotspots, meet with project stakeholders, and create photo and video assets provided the content and inspiration for internal briefings with our Art Director Yenssy Gonzalez, the creative team, and ultimately, Scott Partridge, the graphic artist, and designer who has previously worked with WhereNext on several design projects, including Merrell’s art-driven regional city campaigns.
Our mood board represented the best of Coastal Alabama ecotourism and cultural tourism. Scott created a series of icon-based artworks, including references to important historical monuments, representative species of birds and fish, and famous gastronomy and local pastimes which became the foundation of the marketing campaign and brand kit.
Scott Partridge’s icon-based artwork for our Coastal Alabama Ecotourism campaign.
Designing a Logo and Brand Kit
Yenssy took Scott's final artwork and created layouts for billboards, merchandise, social media posts and stories, mailing lists, and audiovisual assets. She also developed the initial Coastal Alabama Ecotourism logo and brand kit.
In the meantime, our creative and sustainable tourism consulting team, led by Julian Guerrero, developed the name and tagline for the marketing campaign: "Coastal Alabama Ecotourism // Express Your Nature,” and worked with Beyond Green Travel to refine the logo and brand kit. Our tagline “Express Your Nature” is symbolic of both the natural and cultural heritage of the region.
Examples of our Art Director’s layouts for TikTok and Instagram stories, merchandise, and billboards.
The Deliverables
Upon completing our initial scouting trip, we produced a highlight reel from the original footage gathered in the field. We would also deliver a suite of photographic assets of ecotourism attractions of between 50-100 RAW images. Stakeholders could use these to produce their own marketing materials.
Our principal deliverable for this project was a complete 33-page Marketing Brand Kit for the Mobile-Tensaw Delta Regional Ecotourism Plan. We included logos, digital assets, and design templates for electronic and printed media, including billboard/outdoor advertising mockups.
The Yellow Warbler, a species that relies upon the Mobile-Tenshaw Delta during migration, was another icon of our campaign branding.
The Results
Beyond Green Travel and the stakeholders appreciated our project manager, Sandra Eichmann's regular communication and responsiveness to their feedback and our efficiency in creating the campaign assets. The entire Coastal Alabama Ecotourism Project marketing campaign and brand kit were completed and delivered within six months of our preliminary scouting trip to coastal Alabama.