Behind every successful First Night there is an image-maker, a creative force that produces a new look and feel for each of the annual New Year’s festivals. The marketing powerhouse that drove First Night 1999 is RDW Group, a full-service public relations and advertising agency with offices in Worcester and Providence.
In a good marketing campaign, the creative team is the silent partner, allowing its work to speak for itself, content to let the client bask in the glory of a well-conceived strategy. RDW may be that silent partner, but it is hardly an invisible one. In fact, when the firm last provided pro bono services to First Night Providence in 1995, RDW won the national award for button and poster design from among nearly 200 festivals nationwide.
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First Night’s intimate ties to the state’s arts community made it doubly attractive to RDW, which, after all, is among peers in a creative environment. More important, says president Mike Doyle, is that the festival promotes the quality of life in Rhode Island, and that ties into some of his agency’s other commitments. “It dovetails with a number of interests we have in hospitality, tourism, and the airport,” he says.
For First Night 1999, RDW designed the admission button, poster, program cover, counter cards, sponsorship flyer, billboard, and advertisements and, for the fun of it, the agency threw in a TV spot that alone was worth about $30,000, Doyle says. The spot hadn’t been part of RDW’s original commitment, but when members of the account’s creative team came up with an hilarious concept based on what might be in the luggage of arriving First Night artists, Doyle gave the go-ahead for the ad.
The team that put together First Night’s marketing package included creative director Tom Rothermel, account executive David Barricelli, Jr., designer Carolynn Bucki, and associate creative directors Rob Borges and Dan Madole. Rothermel says that coming up with the button design is the first and pivotal decision for a First Night campaign. The admissions buttons have become collectors items. Each button design determines the colors and style of the graphics for all the collateral. “People loved this year’s button,” says First Night executive director Doris Stephens. “Everybody was talking about it.”
“The first time we did the campaign for First Night we did it because we thought it represented a great opportunity creatively to showcase our talent,” says Doyle. “The second time was because it was such a pleasure to work with the people at First Night. There’s never been a more gracious pro bono client, and that’s a very meaningful influence on us” when choosing what causes to support.
