Lake Orion Michigan Downtown Development Authority

Downtown Lake Orion hired New Moon to help further their brand identity with best practices and to develop voice, tone, brand pillars, personality, highlighting the community’s features, attracting new residents, business, and development. We developed a strategy and marketing plan to raise awareness of their downtown as a destination and engage the community.

We hit the ground running, creating content and videos for their online presence, while digging into researching the community through surveys, interviews, and meeting with Downtown merchants to learn all about Lake Orion in order to guide our creative process and direction.

Strategy:
Celebrate so many ways to have FUN in L.O.
• Dining destination, and growing!
• Lakefront life
• Quaint walkable small town with parks & trails
• Fun family-friendly events
• Entertainment for everyone
• Relaxing easy going vibe, like vacation, Up North feel
• Fun history
• Cute shops
• Place to spend quality time with friends, old & new!

CONCEPT: LOL
Take over the familiar (and joyful!) LOL to convey the many FUN facets of Lake Orion.

Rationale:
• Ownable- Lake Orion is already widely known as L.O. 
• Has a sense of fun- it’s what people do when they’re laughing together, not at each other.
• Contemporary- it’s a current phrase, making it appealing to a young audience but not at all excluding
   older people. Everyone knows what this means.
• The LOL could be a design element.
• Could have LOL cutout or snapchat filter for selfies
• Extendable- More so if we are flexible and allow the last letter to change, i.e. LODOTL for Lake Orion
   Dragon on the Lake, LOCS for Lake Orion Concert Series, etc.

The LOL brand marketing campaign was extremely well received by the community and won for Best Marketing and Promotions Community Under 10K Population at the Michigan Downtown Association 2020 Statewide Conference.