Von Braun Center

Project Details

CLIENT

Von Braun Center

SERVICES

Community Engagement | Destination of Choice | Digital Social Advertising | Identity Brand Building | PR Influencer

AWARDS

2024 MarCom Award, Gold: Campaign Branding

2024 MarCom Award, Gold: Campaign Integrated Marketing

2024 Addy Award, Silver: Out-of-Home Media Installation

The Partnership

The Von Braun Center (VBC) is a premier entertainment complex in Huntsville, Alabama, serving as a home for sporting events, theatre, music, dining, conferences, social events, and more. With over 791,500 guests attending nearly 550 events in a single year, the VBC has touched a staggering number of lives.

Moreover, by driving tourism and fueling civic activity in the region, the VBC’s annual economic impact on Huntsville/Madison County is estimated to be over $97 million.

*All data applies to 2022-2023 fiscal year.

The Challenge

The Von Braun Center first opened to the public in 1975. In celebration of the 50th anniversary in 2025, VBC leadership sought to engage a broad regional audience in a 13-month campaign to highlight the VBC’s legacy impact while also positioning it for future growth.

With such a diverse target audience and an extended timeline for implementation, the campaign needed to leverage integrated tactics with opportunities for authentic engagement both onsite and online. The VBC needed a strategic partner that would complement the skills of its in-house staff in order to develop and execute a seamless campaign from start to finish.

The Solutions

To develop a campaign that would resonate with audiences and capture the heart of the VBC’s message, we started with a research-driven development phase. Based on input from stakeholders and community members, as well our own market research, we developed a full campaign brand: theme, logo, messaging, and creative assets.

We also laid out an integrated marketing plan, leveraging traditional and digital advertising, organic social media, earned media, multimedia and video content, custom merchandise, print collateral, influencer and ambassador activation, interactive campaign events, and more.

During the 13 months of the campaign, we offered ongoing strategic partnership for the VBC’s in-house team to support campaign implementation. Most notably, the Red Sage team led digital paid media efforts, creative direction and design, multimedia production, strategy development, and results monitoring and analysis.

The Results

Red Sage achieved the campaign goal of driving brand awareness and audience engagement across the North Alabama region. Select results include:

  • Generated media visibility and community “buzz” with over 300 media mentions of the 50th anniversary campaign
  • Achieved audience saturation of 97%+ through Facebook advertising
  • Achieved high market saturation to all target audiences with total combined impressions of over 2.5 million for digital ads and 3.5 million for social media ads

*All results apply to March 2024 – March 2025