Discover PHL: Through a New Lens

It’s not every day that a client comes to us and asks to completely reinvent the wheel on something. Let's be honest here - sometimes they wanna get some shit done and get shit done fast. “Can you do this? How fast? Can you go faster? As in tonight?” It can be pretty groan-inducing. One of those high-speed, down and dirty groan triggers is direct mail. Just… ugh.

The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau (PHLCVB) needed a direct mail piece that encouraged some of their top prospects to book meetings in Philadelphia soon to take advantage of some limited-time-only offers for event spaces and hotel rentals. It's something they've seen a million times from just as many people over the years, but they wanted a unique spin. Something that gave prospects a new view into Philadelphia and the CVB's powers of transformation. The WOW piece.

We had to think of ways to turn a simple ask into a fruitful creative excursion. What's an unexpected way for these prospects, most of whom have heard from the CVB, to see Philadelphia a new way? Well, one strategy is to take the request quite literally.

We found inspiration in an old-school viewfinder, something many remember fondly, clicking through 3-D scenes of Disney movies on cardboard/film disc. Those viewfinders give a hyper-real sense of space - one that would be very useful to the CVB. In the past few years, Philadelphia has hosted events that require massive reconfigurations of the city's footprint, like the Papal Visit, the annual Marathon, and our focus, the NFL Draft. The kind of 3D scenes that these viewfinders facilitate were perfect for showing how the CVB transformed our Ben Franklin Parkway - taking a gateway into the city and basically turning into a football Carnevale.

We spent a couple of months developing a lightweight prototype with a partner/vendor while also getting a crash course on stereographic photography. We traversed the rooftops of apartment buildings and balconies of the Philadelphia Convention Center to get mathematically exact frames to create the viewfinder film cards, which offer the depth needed to make prospects feel like they could walk right into these spaces. By looking back and mining nostalgia, we gave our clients a new way to view their own beloved city.

Role: Concepting, Copywriting, Product Photography
Creative Partner: Brendon Luci