DDL was contracted by FirstWorks to assist with marketing and communications for the 2019 PVDFest.  We assisted with design, writing press releases, and developing and executing their complete social media strategy. This exciting 4-day annual art festival is held in downtown Providence, Rhode Island during June and brings thousands of attendees to the Creative Capital. Often considered the biggest party in Providence, PVDFest is filled with musicians, artists, curators, and delicious eats from all over the world. We were very excited to work on such a fun project and let our creativity soar.

Spreading the Buzz with Social Media:

First, we conducted some research to determine PVDFest’s past social media tactics and strategy to get an idea of their voice. From there, we developed a social media strategy that would build awareness, engagement, and excitement around the 5th annual festival.

We launched social media campaigns to generate engagement and brand awareness. The ad promoted their first “Acts of Kindness” initiative, set forth by Mayor Elorza, and encouraged attendees to participate in spreading kindness throughout the city of Providence.

Facebook ad encouraging users to like the PVDFest page

The Facebook ads were a smashing success and generated an astonishing, 993-page “Likes” with a relevance score of 9! 

Design for Days:

We also assisted in the design of several graphics for social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. These ranged from tips and trivia to artist spotlights, events during the festival, and many more.

Collateral: There were many pieces of collateral designed for the event. This included promotional ads that were featured in publications such as Motif Magazine and Providence Monthly, program/event itineraries and guides, etc. All collateral pieces maintained consistency with the established campaign, which included selected photography, brand colors and graphics.

Festival Map: What’s a festival without a map? We helped revamp the design of the festival map to flow more cohesively and communicate festival information easily. Here’s what the final design looked like:

Festival Map

Stage Banners: We also assisted in the production and formatting of the stage banners. These were placed at pop up stage locations throughout the festival footprint.

PVDFest Stage Banner

Sponsor Signage: With a wide variety of festival sponsors, we lent a helping hand in the design and production of various print pieces that highlighted the sponsor contributions. This included rack cards, posters, social media graphics, etc.

PVD Sponsor Design

We also designed sponsor shout-outs to thank various level sponsors of the festival. Here is an example of the design we used for social media posts.

Digital Board: The digital board design was created to gain festival attention and to attract more attendees.

Digital Board Design

Social Media: In order to build rapport around the festival and encourage page engagement, we designed various graphics for polls, trivia, inside scoop, artist spotlights, people of PVDFest, and more. Additionally, we utilized photography from past festival years to promote popular event happenings like the parade, food, and attractions.

We created polls that were posted on the Instagram Story and Facebook, encouraging people to vote for which they’re most excited for, like the delicious eats or parade celebration!

We brainstormed some fun and clever trivia questions to build engagement on the page.

 

Inside scoop posts were pushed to give attendees festival pro-tips and tricks like where the nearest restrooms are located, the best places to park, and more.

With so much talent coming to PVD, we designed templates to promote featured artists performing at the festival. The designs were created to maintain the minimal and simplistic look of PVDFest so that the artists could stand out. For musicians and performers, we identified the artist spotlight with sound waves, while the fine artists have a paintbrush and pencil symbol. This helped to keep the artists easily identifiable.

The People of PVDFest posts were meant to build excitement among attendees by showcasing special moments from past festivals and the many faces and ages welcome to attend the festival.  

Act of Kindness posts piggied off Mayor Elorza’s 1000 Acts of Kindness Initiative and encouraged users to share their act of kindness throughout the festival with the hashtag #1000ActsPVD. We ran a social media advertising campaign encouraging users to like the page, generating 993 page likes in totality! 

Building Rapport with Press:

We also attended their official press conference, held at Malted Barley, to kick off the countdown to the event. Mayor Elorza and several others spoke in regard to the event.

We helped write several one-off press releases about a variety of subjects, ranging from family fun to delicious eats and popular artists who have grown to become curators of the festival.

The DDL team had a blast working on this project. Located at the VIP launch party and festival!