This semester, Hill Communications played hard. And we don’t mean in sports. We had the pleasure of partnering with playhrd, a brand dedicated to creating functional athletic wear.
I served as account executive, alongside my incredible team led by Account Supervisor, Jessica Werfel, Account Associates Alexis Blank and Marina DePalo and Freshman Intern Ava Robbins. We partnered with playhrd to assist them through a rebrand that we executed and managed.
At the start of the semester, after researching and auditing the brand’s past social strategy, we conceptualized the rebrand to be focused on community building and selling the lifestyle of playhrd, rather than a product-specific focus. This strategy allowed us to connect with our target audience, of physically active Gen-Zers, on a deeper level and built brand loyalty. We pitched a website redesign and brought the website from a place to just buy products to a place where you can join a community. With a “join the team” section where anyone can apply to be a brand ambassador and an “about” section where the three founders introduce themselves, tell their stories and state playhrd’s mission, the brand website welcomes all visitors and makes them feel that buying a product means creating connections.
playhrd’s mission states that “at playhrd, we believe that life outside of working hard is just as important as the grind itself. 'play hard' is more than a mindset—it’s how you live, and the clothes you wear while doing it,” and we brought that vision to life through a photoshoot that featured models playing a variety of sports and working out in a gym. Through these photos and videos, influencer partnerships and UGC, and giveaways and other call-to-action engaging content, we successfully posted content 5-6 times a week for 4 months straight, ending up with a content calendar built out for our clients beyond our end-date of the semester.
Our lifestyle strategy led to gaining over 316,000 views on the playhrd Instagram account, with over 79% of them being non-followers. This key performance indicator shows us that our strategy and content tactics were ideal for our target audience.
Working with playhrd was filled with working hard as much as it was playing hard with the lively founders who supported us every step of the way. Our entire account was in constant communication with all three founders and we truly were a team. playhrd’s deep care for innovation and quality aligned tremendously with Hill Communication’s mission to create high-quality work through high-quality commitment and I am grateful for all that I have learned throughout this semester.
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