ARTLVR was the California Arts Council’s brand, and it probably connected for a few major donors. But the exclusionary vibe had to leave millions of potential supporters feeling outclassed… and out-of-their-price-range.

 

So trying to recapture $60 million in lost state support through the sale of one million California Arts Plates was, simply put, never going to happen. The effort had stalled with roughly 40,000 plates in circulation for years; the “Million Plates Campaign” was going nowhere.

 

IC pitched the Council on a radical rebrand. If they wanted a million Californians to pay for the Arts Plate on their cars, they needed a million Californians to feel like arts education has a direct impact on their children, their state and their pocketbooks.

We needed to make it more than relevant: we had to make it necessary.

 

We conceived a campaign that would drive home two key points: the arts and arts education cultivate imagination and creativity in every child; and creativity is the key to innovation in every field.

 

Then we developed the “Create a State” line to showcase iconic leaders in many fields whose success derived from innovation, imagination and creative thinking.

 

Working with CAC Chair Malissa Ferruzi-Shriver, we negotiated the participation of almost three dozen “arts drivers,” conceived and produced their creative, and provided them with strategic talking points for public relations events and media coverage of the campaign.