Cecilia Hersh

Booz Allen increased their presence at SXSW in 2018 to appeal to a new audience with a technology immersion sparked by the concept of how technology powers the digital citizen to live their best life. Whether you are a creative or a scientist, a warrior or an athlete, an explorer or a thrillseeker, our technology powers your imagination.

Taking the conceptual elements of The Ritz-Carlton brand, I developed brand standards and guidelines in addition to over 100 customer touch points and applications for The Ritz-Carlton master brand as well as property materials. 

I also pulled the brand voice through to the Human Resources department and developed the Internal Communications Style Guide for use by The Ritz-Carlton ladies and gentlemen.

At Washington Ideas Forum (2017), Booz Allen had an opportunity to share their leading technology in the areas of machine intelligence and virtual reality through various cutting edge applications to garner the audience’s attention and increase engagement through tech demonstrations, supporting events, web articles and snapchat filters.

Booz Allen sends Holiday Cards every year in celebration of the holiday spirit. In 2017, we wanted to align the spirit of the season with the brand values by using winter and seasonal totems as expressions of those values. We illustrated these totems and wrote celebratory copy to connect the values using a creative and authentic tone.

Booz Allen launched their Purpose & Values employee campaign in 2017 to reinforce how the work of our employees change the world. The launch of the brand values required a consistent look and feel that connects our people and the work of Booz Allen to the communities we affect. Multiple touchpoints were developed from login screens, laptop stickers, digital posters, pull-up banners and more, to reinforce the values and to engage and showcase the spirit of our people.

Riley's Rumble is Montgomery County, MD's toughest half marathon. With 13.1 miles of heat, hills and humidity, this half marathon needed a bold identity to capture these elements. A combination of a unique type-treatment, along with iconic illustrative elements helps this race to build a strong visual brand. Branding was executed on t-shirts, car magnets, Emails and Facebook posts for added engagement which showed an increase in registration as well as sponsors to support the event.

Booz Allen Hamilton is a technology consultancy bringing a mix of expertise to solve problems by devising powerful solutions for their clients’ toughest challenges in the cyber, digital, consulting, engineering and analytics fields.

Because of the nature of their work, the Booz Allen offices are diverse and often feel separate from the corporate brand. We injected their brand values and design into office spaces through wall applications and digital signage featuring brand elements and stories of their 100 year heritage to tie our people back to the foundation of the company.

Residence Inn partnered with the Story Bug App to give their guests a unique way to stay in touch with their children when they travel. I teamed with a copywriter to create a video highlighting how the App gives the parent who "does it all" the super power to connect with their family, no matter near or far.  

This video won a Silver Adrian Award (HSMAI).

Building off the brand development I executed for The Ritz-Carlton brand, I was asked to pull through a new visual and verbal system for The Ritz-Carlton Rewards as well. This process included logo development, photography strategy, and typography and design standards. In addition to the visual expression, I also partnered with a writer to develop the verbal voice and copy guidelines.

In conjunction with the brand voice, I used the standards I developed as a proof of concept through the various levels of the member program. This entailed the execution of the brand through Elite Rewards Member Kits, including Brochures, Carriers, Member Cards and letters.

On the heels of the brand work for The Ritz-Carlton Rewards, I was asked to continue and expand the brand expression through The Ritz-Carlton Rewards Credit Card. This included the visual expression (photography, design, color and typography) as well as the verbal voice. The pieces included extended to The Ritz-Carlton Rewards Credit Card direct mail, email and web placement design (for acquisition as well as retention), in addition to the Welcome Kit (brochure, box, welcome letter) for new Cardmembers,  

Capital One Small Business was looking to engage their customers to utilize their accounts as their primary business account through large scale deposits in exchange for cashback offers. Our creative strategy was to utilize seasonal urgency in combination with a clear and transparent message to clarify what could be considered as a complicated multi-step offer.

Capital One, in partnership with the Women’s Presidents Organization and with Rebecca Minkoff, held an upscale event in New York City celebrating the leadership and spirit of women in business. The experience balanced elegant, modern motifs with playful, inspiring quotes to set the stage for fun and engaging discussion, as well as moments of connection.

Capital One launched an always-on campaign to increase unaided awareness of its small business banking offerings to an upmarket audience. The campaign consisted of online videos, streaming audio, as well as static and animated banner ads.

Marriott Rewards offers the bi-annual global promotion MegaBonus to excite and incentivize members to travel. I developed the concept of "Picture This,"  which featured whimsical illustrations over photographs of everyday experiences to let the Marriott Rewards member fantasize about the multitude of uses for their loyalty points when traveling with Marriott. This concept was pulled through print pieces and online ads, as well as an interactive website where members could overlay custom illustrations onto their own images and share through personal social media accounts to show their "rewarding reality" with Marriott Rewards.

While working on the brand development for SPA by JW, I created their complete stationery and collateral needs, including letterhead, appointment cards, envelopes and single and dual language brochures. In addition, I also designed retail cases to display available Spa items.

Marriott Rewards launched a beta test for members to accrue and use loyalty points. These three new programs would offer unique getaways and high quality product offers through flash email promotions, local area offers to member smartphones [utilizing geo-tracking technology] and daily point earnings based on social media actions. I developed individual logos for each program as well as a photography and visual style guide for the concept of "Make 'It' Happen" to encourage and publicize these new, short-term offerings.

The objective for the Marriott Rewards Fall 2014 MegaBonus campaign was to show members that with Marriott Rewards points, their dream vacations were attainable. I developed a concept titled, "Within Your Reach" to tell a visual story using travel photography and forced perspective to make an abstract concept feel literal. This campaign was the first to use social media to target the Gen-Y guest by featuring this innovative photography execution with an integrated Facebook photography contest that garnered an extraordinary 25.53% engagement rate on Facebook.  

I developed the concept and design for the npExperts 2015 fundraising guide for Blackbaud using a humanist style and rich photography to engage the reader. The concept was executed as an eBook and the concept was pulled through promotional materials such as a print brochure, multiple emails, a landing page and online placements.

The publication design won an award with GDUSA in 2015.