Holiday Apparel
BOW WOW BUDDIES FOUNDATION FUNDRAISER
To raise money for Camp Bow Wow’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization during the holiday season, “Howliday” apparel is designed and sold to dog lovers across the nation with proceeds benefitting the Bow Wow Buddies Foundation.
Inspired by everything that makes the holidays great in conjunction with people’s love for dogs, I hoped to maximize the appeal of the design to lead to an increase in sweaters sold. 884 sweaters sold, totaling $6,732 which was an increase from the previous years sweater sales of 614 sweaters, totaling $5,960. This almost $1,000 increase means the Bow Wow Buddies Foundation was able to give out an additional grant this year.
To get the word out about the holiday apparel, a set of marketing materials was developed and provided to the Camp Bow Wow system to inform their followers and customers of the fundraiser. Without these materials, the fundraiser would not have reached such a large audience and would’ve directly impacted sales.
The Proces
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The Proces 〰️
It all started in a marketing brainstorm meeting, listing off Christmas carols that could be “dog-ified”, although it was integral to not get too Christmas-specific so we did not alienate any of our customers who celebrate a different holiday. This parameter was also followed when it came time for me to design the imprint - rather than focusing on Christmas related objects, I focused on wintertime accessories, activities, and traditions.
HOW DID I NARROW IT DOWN?
To the right, you’ll see all drafts of the sweater design. A majority of the drafts included only minor changes, from simplifying icons to rearranging the pups into an order that looked best. I determined the layout of the pups and accessories by maintaining balance and equal visual weight as I didn’t want one pup overtaking another.
It also became important to manage the amount of color being used in the design as the more colors that were used, the more expensive it became for our vendor to print the design. My goal as designer was to create a visually interesting design while maximizing profits for the largest donation as possible for the Bow Wow Buddies Foundation.
There was also a lot of simplifying of the accessories done as it can be difficult to print such fine details on clothing. This also helped with reducing the number of colors used to maintain pricing of the sweater.
DRAFTING BECAME A PUZZLE
Marketing Materials
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Marketing Materials 〰️
MAXIMIZING EXPOSURE TO MAKE THE
BIG BUCKS FOR PUPS IN NEED
To advertise the howliday apparel fundraiser, an omni-channel marketing campaign was created that included both print and digital platforms to maximize reach. This kit of materials was then distributed out to the franchise system of over 200 locations which greatly increased visibility of the materials, directly impacting the success of the fundraiser campaign. In-Camp materials, such as the flyer and digital menu boards, allowed the campaign to reach current active customers while the social media campaign reached both followers and non-followers.
I used a white background behind the items to allow the red of the sweatshirt and bandana to capture the attention of our viewers and to not overpower the color of the apparel. A QR code was used to allow viewers to easily reach the fundraising website as the URL was not easily memorable. This increased visits to our webpage, directly impacting sales. I used animation to showcase both products available for sale and was a solution to our social media vendor not being capable of sharing carousels systemwide.
