Ideastream Public Media
“L&SOI bring a wealth of experiences, approaches, and tools to help pull the best work out of the internal organization. They bring a fresh, independent perspective, but more importantly, their techniques and personalities have helped facilitate conversations that resulted in a common understanding among management as to who we are, what our brand is and how we could best communicate that to our stakeholders.”
— Todd Mesek, Chief Marketing Officer
Brand strategy. Brand hierarchy. Brand activation. Messaging. Strategic planning. Ideation.
OVERVIEW
Ideastream includes a number of entities including their three initial channels – WVIZ, WCPN, WCLV, and subsequently WKSU in 2022. There was never a cohesive brand developed for Ideastream, as their brand organically evolved over a 20 year period. Their public media community of listeners and viewers were not aware of Ideastream as a whole; the awareness was centered on each individual station. They were interested in determining what the brand architecture should be, the brand platform associated with it, and then the messaging to the market. Ideastream had a lot to offer and people simply didn’t realize all they did for the community.
SOLUTION
L&SOI initially conducted research to measure Ideastream’s brand awareness and understanding. The insights were leveraged to develop their brand platform, brand hierarchy, messaging platform, and marketing plan. Additional working sessions with the staff were conducted to delve deeper into how their brand could best be expressed and communicated to their target audiences. The findings from both the external and internal views, coupled with knowledge about the northeast Ohio media ecosystem all came together as their new brand platform along with the activation plans to bring it to life. L&SOI managed a diverse team of creative specialists for a total end-to-end solution making it a seamless process and experience for Ideastream Public Media. The new brand was launched to the public on June 15, 2021. The brand platform, along with our continued marketing support support, was leveraged again during the merger with WKSU in 2022.
