In-depth research
and hard-hitting
strategy first

The Problem

Updated marketing for an updated brand

Northern Kentucky University has been working hard on its brand. The university has a very distinct look and feel, but it also has a very distinct on-campus culture that they needed to more strongly weave through their marketing. A huge selling point of the university is the small-town campus culture, but with access to big city benefits being so near to Cincinnati. It’s a hard message to pinpoint and articulate. Additionally, NKU needed to ensure that their website was serving their unique audiences: current students, prospective students, and staff. The university already had an agency of record with which they had been working for years, and this agency was heading up a lot of their initiatives. But when it comes to website strategy and development, the agency reached out to Choptank for support.

The Solution

In-depth research and strategy

Choptank was brought in to conduct research with current students, potential students, and staff. To truly understand their needs from a website perspective and to help round out the brand messaging strategy, Choptank needed to get face-to-face with the people at the heart of this tight-knit university culture. Through one-on-one interviews, on-campus focus groups and broader online surveying, we were able to get to the meat of the expectations of each audience. We built marketing personas to reflect the different demographics and audience groups that needed served by NKU marketing, and leveraged those personas to build a website sitemap and taxonomy structure for multiple NKU websites. Consulting with their lead agency on creative, we then took on front-end development and handed off dev files to NKU’s internal marketing team for implementation of the various websites. Ongoing collaboration with these teams was critical throughout the creative and back-end development phases, so we stayed on as consulting support until the new websites were launched or, at least, well underway.

Work

Nuvoda

Nuvoda branding and marketing

A client, RF WasteWater, was creating a new sister company to its family. Choptank was engaged to name, brand, and build a strategy for Nuvoda. We help the company with design, collateral, website development, social media, and more.

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Express

Express mobile application

Express needed a new app concept that better connected the online and in-person experiences, leveraged emerging and innovative technology, and furthered their goal of being a fashion fore-runner. Choptank worked with them on some "outside of the box" thinking to develop smashing new concepts.

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Series of matte black sinks with dramatic lighting on a dark background

Sinkology

Sinkology strategy and marketing

Award-winning full service marketing support for long-term partner. Choptank works with Sinkology on naming, branding, website design / development, social media, content marketing, photography, videography, and more.

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Things Remembered

Things Remembered website design

Choptank worked with Things Remembered to redesign their massive eCommerce website. The brand was making some big changes with products, marketing, and more, and needed a website to reflect the same level of innovation.

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