Opening doors for the young generation
As a small new string orchestra was opening its doors for the first time, they asked us to design their social media strategy and touch up on their visual identity at the occasion. Their goal? To boost their brand awareness and start attracting younger audiences to their music events.
ZOE is a professional chamber orchestra operating in Nitra. Its core practice is classical music performed at festivals and events. ZOE is the end result of exceptional musicians who decided to come together and form an orchestra - using for building blocks nothing but their talent, mutual passion for music and long-term friendships between the members.
Opening doors for the young generation
However, the newly founded ensemble needed to solve one problem: a poorly developed brand awareness, especially in the digital environment. And where there is a problem, there is an opportunity – and ZOE saw it right away. Its members asked us to use the new strategy for reaching younger target groups, and thus rejuvenating their audience.
Logo: when letters turn into music
We all know how classical music sounds. But how does it look? We further played with the idea of seeing music, and it left us with the visuality of seemingly scattered letters that follow the logic dictated more by music notes than by syntax. While the symbolism of words transforming into music is only shown in hints, the letter “O” in ZOE logo comes to complement the soft visuals with its letter-note metamorphosis. This particular note is also known as the king of all notes: because it is the longest one and counts for four beats.
The image of classical music: striking typography and soothing colors
When choosing typography and colors, our attempt was to capture the typical qualities of classical music and seeing how words such as elegance, tradition and harmony could be tied to a visual representation. What came out of it was a slim typography with a soft character, as well as calming pastel shades, that were stretching across the entire identity of ZOE.
The range of chosen colors ended up fulfilling a practical role as well: on ZOE’s website,the palette is used for color-coding and acts as a visual aid in the orchestra’s repertoire. Each color helps to quickly distinguish the type of proposed event in the calendar.
Inspire, educate and incite discussion
The pre-defined communication goals for ZOE played a paramount role when mapping out the social media content strategy. Namely, it was the intention to make the brand more attractive for the younger generation, while also inspiring it to build relationships with classical music.
If we were to sum up our social media communication strategy for ZOE in three verbs, it would be to educate, inspire and engage.
Communication that stays elegant
In order to keep the consistency going on all levels, we chose to stick with a pleasant and friendly tone of voice, while staying classy and formal. Minimal and clever emoji usage, brand color palette and the push and pull magnetic pattern made up for a uniform verbal and visual communication of ZOE across all media.
Music knows no borders
Communication strategy for ZOE was primarily focused on Facebook, with the goal to address primarily Generation X. Instagram served as a supporting platform and was tasked to appeal to Generation Y and Z in particular.
The usage of streaming platforms held a special place in the strategy as well, since it would replace the cultural events during the pandemic. And what initially seemed like a complication has quickly turned into an opportunity to gain wider brand awareness throughout the whole country, instantly.
