Haha Haha Co.

Attractions, Tourism & The Arts

TCU approached Hahahaha to develop branding for their Sesquicentennial, or as it is more commonly referred to, their 150th anniversary celebration. Though 2023 was the big year to promote this monumental achievement, we started this project in 2019. We were charged with creating a logo and graphic system that would celebrate one of the university’s most significant milestones in their history and promote their vision for the future.

Hahahaha was specifically selected based on our creative capabilities, connection to the TCU and Fort Worth communities and our ability to deftly navigate a committee-led initiative that would have a high-profile position among many audiences.

TCU photos for 150th anniversary celebration

Approach

We dove into this challenge head first, conducting extensive research, including comparative landscape research, archival research, and interviews with key trustees, former Chancellor Bill Tucker, alumni, administration, students and committee members. Through this exploration, several key themes and values clearly stood out across generations of TCU students and alumni. A commitment to academic excellence, a strong sense of community, and a focus on service and leadership remained constant in spite of all the changes in the world over 15 decades. 

“Our history is incomplete. Our speaking and our learning are incomplete. We will not demand vows or enjoin commitment to truth that we are still discovering. We will fill the next century by seeking, by entering gladly its maze of marvels, whose patterns will emerge, surprising us with joy. We light this torch to mark our hopes and expectations; its warmth and light tell our best intention.”

1973’s Centennial presentation by former Chancellor J.M. Moudy 
TCU 150 Sketches

In the archives of the TCU Library, we reviewed yearbooks, invitations, speeches, photographs, posters and other relics from the past. It provided consistent and humbling reminders of the responsibility we held in our hands to carry on an amazing legacy of intention in the pursuit of our best.

Solution

At its core, this logo had to connect. It had to compliment the existing arched TCU mark. Though it could leverage the equity of TCU’s logo, it had to balance alongside it and add specific meaning to this special occasion. It had to be clearly recognizable to our alumni base and students in a way that evoked pride built on meaning. It had to bridge 150 years of history and lean into its bold vision for the future. It had to support a broader ad campaign with a wide range of uses from video to merchandise, signage, athletic uniforms and fields of play, graduation gowns, lapel pins and even a drone show.

The final mark leverages the iconic symbol of Frog Fountain. Located in the heart of the TCU campus, Frog Fountain has four stylized flutes representing each class of students, and the water flowing between them symbolizing the passing of knowledge from class to class. This was the visual icon we felt could link generations in meaning, memory and pride.

TCU 150th anniversary logos

Outcome

The branding campaign for TCU’s 150th anniversary launched in the fall of 2022 and has marked the celebration with great consistency and clarity. Our small but mighty mark has lit up the sky above campus, stood behind the bell on Wall Street, found its way to the National College Football Championship, been painted on murals across the US and used almost everywhere in between. “To say we are proud of this little mark is an understatement. Our team is honored to be a part of this monumental milestone for a university that is leading us all into the future,” Charlie Howlett, VP, Creative Director (TCU Class of 2006). 

Go Frogs!

photo of TCU 150th anniversary mural
February 3, 2023

Saddle up for Zoo Ball

Here’s to the Wild Ones

Zoo Ball is the Fort Worth Zoo’s largest fundraising event of the year. Guests come together for a notoriously good time in support of wildlife conservation programs, locally and around the world. As one of Fort Worth’s most anticipated social events returned to the community’s calendar, Zoo Ball demanded an invitation worthy of the occasion. 

In one of his last performances before retirement, country music legend and prolific songwriter, Robert Earl Keen, would take the stage and set the tone for the kind of affair Fort Worth does best – Texas outlaw.

zoo-ball

What’s in an Invitation?

Zoo Ball is a great opportunity to bring people together in celebration of the Zoo’s ongoing commitment to wildlife conservation. And the invitation is the first step in attracting donors in our philanthropic community to attend and participate in the Zoo’s charitable efforts.

Goals

  • Generate buzz among new attendees and past guests
  • Communicate important event details
  • Create a memorable invitation that plays well beyond the event
  • Raise dollars to fund wildlife conservation and education programs
zoo-ball

Rounding Up The Best

Hahahaha’s creative team was off to the races and curated a Texas Outlaw concept that reached into the hearts of the philanthropic community and beyond. To set the tone for the event, our team developed an event theme moodboard. This visual representation of country elements included western saloons and cowboys allowing us to explore new ways to engage with the guests leading up to the event. 

We gathered all our ideas together and set off on crafting the Save the Date package, Commemorative invitation, and Auction guide.

all-hat-and-all-cattle

Save The Date & Invitation Suite

To unite the objectives and theme of the event, we developed a logo and paired it with a rugged, yet sophisticated color palette including shades of gold and black. Complementing the palette was a suite of custom illustrations featuring native Texas species of plants, animals, and the infamous Texas outlaw. 

As a subtle nod that helped tease performer Robert Earl Keen, we included some of his most famous lyrics throughout the save the date and invitation. Most notably, the event name is abridged from his iconic song, “The Road Goes on Forever.”

cards-jack-queen-king-ace

Custom Card Deck

When it comes to cards they don’t call it Texas Hold’em for nothing. Leveraging themes of the old west, we created a saloon-inspired, 54-card playing deck that featured Texas animals, like the jaguarundi and armadillo. The deck was created in collaboration with Big Box Little Box, who was able to bring the details and textures that were important to the card and box design to fruition. 

Included in the deck were educational facts and illustrations about Texas wildlife, giving guests a unique way to commemorate the event and pay homage to the wild things and wild places we all love.

Results

It was crucial that the invite not get lost in the shuffle of daily mail while also rousing members of the community to think, “I can’t miss that.” The event attracted previous and first-time attendees, with tickets selling out. Not only was the Zoo able to receive impressive support from individuals and local businesses, but the fundraising event raised more than seven-figure sums. The Texas Outlaw theme generated social sharing before, during, and after the event. The annual event offered maximum entertainment that made for wild memories that people are still talking about.

In Spring 2021, the Fort Worth Zoo was ramping up to unveil their new habitat, Elephant Springs. The habitat, which is home to the Zoo’s Asian elephant herd and a greater one-horned rhino, is part of the Zoo’s Wilder Vision initiative. With opening day on the horizon, the Zoo needed a way to generate excitement and communicate the truly immersive experience to new and returning Zoo goers. After all, Elephant Springs is more than a habitat. It’s a destination worth visiting.

Opportunity

After more than a year at home, people were ready to look forward to something big. And the grand opening of Elephant Springs was the perfect way to delight and excite animal lovers everywhere. Featuring wildlife and environmental details unique to the natural habitat that inspired it, we wanted to highlight this much-awaited encounter as more of an adventure than an exhibit.

Goals

  • Increase awareness and excitement for the opening of Elephant Springs 
  • Boost ticket sales from both new and returning customers 
  • Develop a campaign that extends beyond opening day
Elephant Springs Out of Home

Approach

Some of the best things in life aren’t things at all. They’re places. Filled with the sights, sounds and even splashes that make a place unique. Drawing inspiration from Elephant Springs’ authentic environment and immersive nature, we decided to focus the campaign around capturing the playful and engaging way both people and wildlife experience the habitat.

The only problem? We had to imagine it. To ensure the campaign was ready in time to promote the exhibit as soon as it opened to the public, we had to envision the experience based on renderings and small-scale models. The habitat has no shortage of water features — large pools and waterfalls designed to create new opportunities for animal enrichment and soakers that allow guests to interact with the herd directly. Alongside the Asian elephants that now call this habitat home, we decided to make water a main character in our campaign. 

Creative

Working with wildlife is tough. Patience, flexibility and creativity are essential to capturing key frames and moments that can be utilized in the campaign. We partnered with zookeepers to create fun enrichment opportunities that allowed us to photograph organic moments of the elephants getting acclimated and enjoying their new yard. In the end, we were able to provide the Fort Worth Zoo with a full stack of assets that could be used for years to come. 

To build excitement for the new exhibit, we created a delightful soundtrack made entirely of the splashes and features of Elephant Springs, composing a soundscape as adventurous as the environment.

Elephant Springs Magazine and Mobile Ads

Results

Opening a new exhibit attracts people from all over the state and beyond. To help meet the Zoo’s annual goals, we created a robust omnichannel campaign inclusive of traditional and digital media, including streaming audio, video and TV. Seeing an opportunity to expand awareness, we partnered with Visit Fort Worth to co-brand ads in Texas Monthly and on billboards across Texas. Additionally, we targeted travelers throughout DFW and Love Field. Because this was an awareness campaign, our success was measured in tickets sold (attendance), impressions served and reach across the state.

  • 200% increase in website sessions 
  • 242% increase in new users on the Elephant Springs webpage
    • 5.6 million website pageviews
    • 1 million website sessions 
  • 681.3k new users on the website (16% increase in sessions and 22% increase in new users) 
  • 600K general admission tickets purchased and over 23k memberships/renewals sold during the campaign run (April – July)
  • The Fort Worth Zoo met their annual attendance goal in three months early
  • 16% increase in organic search and direct channel traffic to the website 
  • 14.9K YouTube video clicks 

TCU Football is back! In the 8th year of this project, we wanted to celebrate TCU’s tradition and history in a way that would unite all Frog fans. Last year, fans missed out on the game day experience because of COVID. This year is all about reuniting with the gridiron, tailgating traditions and most importantly, each other.

The theme for this year’s Riff Ram video, Gather, centers around a return to normal as it takes you on a game day journey through campus, tailgating at Amon Carter and into the stadium itself. Game days in the fall look different for each Horned Frog fan. Some fans enjoy the game day experience from their couch, while others spend all week planning for their perfect tailgate. Regardless of how we support the Frogs, we are stronger together. Gather celebrates the triumphant return of the Horned Frog Faithful by bringing us back to the beat of the drum, the rustle of pom-poms and the roar of the crowd.

See you at the Carter!

Credits:

Concept by: Haha Haha Co. 
Produced by: Haha Haha Co. and Make Something Beautiful

Every year, migratory birds travel through Texas to reach their destination. Many of them migrate at night, when street lamps and building lights shine bright. During peak migration months, artificial lights can pose a danger and often cause death for millions of migratory birds traveling at night. Inspired by our love of the Texas sky and all the wildlife in it, we developed a campaign to raise awareness and encourage Texans to turn off the lights. 

The Challenge: Reduce Unnecessary Light Pollution

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has dedicated itself to advancing its mission of understanding and conserving the natural world—with a specific focus on birds. According to research, light pollution emitted from Texas cities, especially DFW and Houston, attracts and disorients birds—causing millions of them to fatally collide with buildings and windows. To reduce non-essential light output during peak migration times, Cornell Labs partnered with Hahahaha to create a PSA campaign to drive measurable change. The “Lights Out” initiative was designed to raise awareness around the issue and show Texans that saving millions of migratory birds is as easy as flipping a switch.

Protecting the Skies Over Texas

Our biggest challenge was utilizing data to create an emotional response, ultimately driving people to not only pay attention, but to act. We focused our attention on the two groups who could make the biggest difference—residents and commercial building owners/operators. With a nod toward Texas’ unofficial motto “Don’t Mess With Texas” and an appeal to Texan pride, we created the Protect the Skies Over Texas campaign. 

Utilizing hard-hitting facts and direct language, we developed a message that spoke to our key audiences. The language paired with clean typography and bold visuals to make the campaign difficult to ignore. And easy to act on. To track the effectiveness of our planned media, we invited Texans to pledge to flip the switch on nonessential lighting.

Meaningful change begins within our communities, so we connected with local leaders and business owners to ensure the campaign messaging we delivered inspired people to make a difference—in the air and on the ground.

Summer Zoo Camp Paid Advertising

Every year, the Fort Worth Zoo hosts an immersive educational experience called Summer Zoo Camp. This adventurous program offers campers—from kindergarten to high school—a variety of unique summer camp options. Coming off the heels of the pandemic, families in North Texas were thrilled to give their children a chance to learn, play and make new friends in a safe, outdoor environment. And the Fort Worth Zoo was ready to provide the perfect space to experience wildlife up close.

Proud to create a fresh and original concept once again for this annual event—we infused into it, the world’s collective excitement for getting back to normal with those we love most. Leaning into a familiar and revered summer tradition, we concepted an enticing summer blockbuster theme, successfully casting a wide net on a wide-ranging audience.

Coming To a Zoo Near You

Fort Worth Zoo Camp Print Advertisment

Summer Zoo Camp is a truly one-of-a-kind program where campers of all ages can safely explore and expand their knowledge of wildlife conservation. All while discovering new friendships and finding ample opportunities to grow their imagination. We recognized the importance and the potential impact of this educational program for young explorers, so we set out to create messaging that would attract the true decision makers in the home—moms. Every year, the Zoo creates themes that drive the conceptual direction of the creative. Inspired by this year’s movie theme and the posters theaters use to promote films, we featured Summer Zoo Camp and a star-studded cast of camp experiences.

Paid Social for Summer Zoo Camp

Choosing to incorporate bright, flying flamingos in our messaging allowed us to easily showcase one of the Zoo’s favorite characters to catch people’s attention immediately. Our digital advertisements performed exceptionally well—as this medium allowed the static flamingos to animate and fly across the screens of thousands of North Texans. By the time the credits rolled, Summer Zoo Camp had nearly sold out, successfully achieving summer blockbuster status. 

Fort Worth Zoo Summer Zoo Camp Billboard

Results:

  • 2,586 registrations were made—achieving 98% of the target goal
  • More than $716k in revenue reported
  • Our flying flamingo stars made over 8.5 million media impressions while in the spotlight

Opportunity

The Fort Worth Zoo was looking for a way to refresh their Valentine’s Adoption campaign to reach a broader audience and encourage more adoptions. As a new year approached, we gathered audience data and used our longtime partnership with the Zoo to create a reenergized Valentine’s campaign that appealed to a broader audience and sold more adoption packages. 

Refreshing a Valentine’s Day Tradition

The Fort Worth Zoo Valentine’s Adoption campaign gives animal lovers a chance to show some love while contributing to the cost of care and wellbeing for the Zoo’s wildlife. In previous years, the Zoo primarily focused on penguin adoption packages, which were highly successful, but audience demographics revealed that most people purchased penguin adoption packages for children, limiting the impact of the campaign to one primary audience. Hahahaha recommended including a new animal to encourage more engagement and the Zoo ran with our idea and responded by adding four new animals to the campaign—foxes, skunks, flamingoes, and porcupines — to fit more buyers’ unique personalities and relationships.

  • Fort Worth Zoo Social Graphics
  • Billboard Graphics

A Broader Appeal

Love has many definitions. By offering a larger selection of animals to adopt, we were able to personalize campaign messaging to connect with a wider audience and celebrate an even broader spectrum of love. For each animal, we chose to highlight different kinds of love that people experience.

Our romantic, love-focused options included foxes representing fox-y significant others. Our fun, anti-valentine’s day options were represented by a skunk and a porcupine because love can stink and even be a bit prickly. Finally, we included a “Galentine’s” option focused on celebrating positive friendships between women. By expanding our animal options, we were able to create a “choose your own” Valentine’s Day celebration.

We recreated a digital version of the classic Valentine’s Day cards from grade school for use on social media and leverage nostalgia as a vehicle for success. This medium offered us a space to use humor and strategically placed puns to highlight the different animal adoptions being offered as well as communicate the different types of love that Valentine’s Day celebrates. 

 Results:

  • Nearly 50% increase in animal adoptions sold YoY
  • 40% of all orders were foxes
  • Despite Covid-19 and being a virtual event, 125 dinners were sold netting more than $15k in revenue

The Situation

While the spring break season is consistently successful, Telluride Ski and Golf Resort needed ways to entice travelers to visit during off periods leading up to peak season. To do so, they developed a discounted lift ticket and partnered with Hahahaha and local retail locations to get the word out. While similar campaigns had experienced previous success in markets within driving distance to the resort, Dallas Fort Worth, a flight-first market, needed a unique strategy and market push to get in front of the right audience and convince them to convert.

A Nimble, Focused Strategic Partnership

With spring break rapidly approaching, we moved quickly and efficiently to launch the campaign in market at the optimal time. Our team offered strategic direction to their in-house creative team to be most cost-effective and focus our efforts on media strategy and getting into market in a very quick time frame. Telluride offered the discounted tickets through ski shops throughout DFW, so our digital strategy focused on driving foot traffic into the retail stores to ultimately sell the lift tickets.

Creating a Digital Strategy Aimed at In-Person Conversions

Because there was no online portal for selling discounted lift tickets, our campaign focused on building awareness and driving audiences to local ski shop partners to purchase tickets. With minimal time available before launch, our team created a streamlined media strategy that pushed audiences to a landing page where they could learn more about the retailers offering discounted ski lift tickets. The strategy incorporated paid social and display ads targeted through strategic geofencing, contextual targeting and retargeting with content related to skiing, outdoors and travel. We determined that tourists are the primary market interested in and available to book last minute trips, and targeted users that had a propensity to travel and an interest in skiing and resorts. Ultimately, our team created an effective digital strategy that engaged leads and moved them to brick-and-mortar retailers to purchase their tickets.

Results:

  • Campaigns contributed to 181 total passes sold in-store and over $85,000 in total revenue for an overall ROI of 13:1.
  • Sold 181 tickets in 14 days.
  • Telluride sold 4X the number of ticket sales during our campaign compared to the previous period.
  • The Telluride “5 Day Special” landing page received over 6.9K pageviews over the course of the campaign. 
  • Almost 11% of landing sessions were “engaged sessions” (691), where users spent more time on the page or bought tickets. 

Golf is a timeless sport that brings people together to enjoy camaraderie and pristine, cultivated greens. But, what happens when you add luxury travel and experiences into a premium golf membership? You get Icon Golf – an esteemed golf and travel membership that takes players around the world. Icon needed to revamp their brand to generate more memberships, so they partnered with the Hahahaha team to refocus their sales efforts with a full-scale, multichannel digital campaign and a new website. 

In 2020, Icon invested in increasing their sales from 250 memberships to 1000. So, they partnered with Hahahaha to revamp their brand, generate more memberships, and focus their sales efforts with a full-scale, multichannel digital campaign and a new website to meet their very aggressive goal.

Goals

Grow Icon Golf membership database from 250 to 1,000 in 18 months.

  • Refresh the brand identity
  • Develop a content marketing strategy 
  • Build a CRM to streamline lead generation and membership management
  • Improve online user experience 
  • Prioritize sales efforts

Roles

  • Strategy 
  • Creative
  • Digital 
  • Branding
  • Positioning
  • Client Services

Partnering to Develop a Structured, Integrated Sales Process

We began our relationship with Icon Golf on the ground level as they were initiating the formal development of a structured sales team. This allowed Hahahaha to partner directly with the Icon team to merge sales and marketing efforts. Icon’s previous marketing efforts were primarily functioning by word-of-mouth and leveraging connections with existing club members within their portfolio. While this approach was successful, there was an opportunity to expand their sales efforts through digital automation to reach a wider audience.

We started by evaluating each medium against our overall goals and the need to fill the funnel with awareness initiatives and convert interested prospects into members. We found that paid search and streaming audio and video proved successful for building awareness, and third party publication emails allowed us to hit a very targeted audience that was ready to convert.

A Refreshed Creative Platform

We recognized an opportunity to reinvigorate their creative platform to better communicate the unique benefits that an Icon membership provides. Icon Golf offers members full privileges with an expertly curated collection of private golf clubs as well as luxurious member experiences and fully planned quests to exotic locales. So, Icon Golf is much more than a golf membership – it’s a full-package of golf and travel – and communicating that was the central challenge of updating their creative.

When creating the updated creative platform, we focused on the luxury aesthetic and benefits of an Icon Golf membership. We wanted the design and language to reflect the elevated perks and nature of the membership, all while highlighting the relationship-focused aspect of joining Icon Golf. The camaraderie between Icon members is a key strategic imperative, so we had to make that central in the updated creative deck.

We created the concept “Legendary is Within Reach” as our primary branded language alluding to the potential for legendary moments with legendary people, on and off the course.

A New, Optimized Website

The central piece of Icon’s rebrand was optimizing their website to generate more qualified leads. Previous to our relationship,the Icon Golf website was split into two different URLs – Icon.Golf and IconGolf.com to satisfy internal marketing objectives. However, this split up their traffic and made consolidating valuable lead information more difficult. So, we combined their properties into one streamlined website. To increase the site’s performance, we implemented key SEO and content updates targeted at their primary audiences.

Our team also redeveloped the site with crucial user experience updates to improve site accessibility and usability aimed at generating form fills from qualified leads. To improve usability, we simply added header and footer navigations to improve the overall user experience. In addition, we employed site tagging to capture key user behavior metrics in order to continue to drive future data-driven site optimization opportunities. Finally, we placed CTAs throughout prominent areas of the website so that users could always and easily make direct contact with the reps at Icon Golf. The final result is a website that supports Icon’s strategic marketing goals by generating more engagement and qualified leads.

Creating a Centralized Lead Strategy

To continue to round out the lead generation strategy, we implemented a CRM strategy to accurately target lists of valuable, interested leads with compelling emails. We connected key data sources – the Icon website, MailChimp, and Salesforce as well as other lead collection points to ensure that our data automatically fed into the sales process and reduced the work the sales team needed to do to generate more memberships.

We created a variety of emails around the central message “Legendary is Within Reach” that ultimately guided leads to complete a form fill and capture valuable data for converting more leads.

To round out the digital strategy for Icon, we created a multi-channel paid media strategy that targeted valuable audiences in paid search, paid social media, display banners and email. In addition, we cultivated strategic partnerships with golf publications and outlets to secure high-value placements in front of the most highly qualified audience.

Results

In 2021, Icon Golf had their best year ever, setting a record month for membership sales in December.

  • Reached 85% of their new membership goal in under 9 months
  • Last Click Attribution:
    • 31 new memberships driven directly by campaign paid media
    • $450k in revenue
  • Total annual revenue surpassed 1.7 Million, resulting in a strong ROAS of 7:1
  • Lead Gen Growth in 2021
    • 569% increase in form fills 
  • Web Traffic Growth in 2021
    • 453.4% increase in pageviews
    • 480.9% increase in sessions 
    • 485.1% increase in new users visiting the website

Luxury Living in the Heart of Fort Worth

As a high-end, mixed-use development, Clearfork needed a naming structure for the five different multi-family projects. Through the brand positioning process, we uncovered the importance of the land to the Edwards family. Through in-depth interviews with family members, we heard stories that painted a vivid picture of how the family interacted with the ranch land for generations.

  • The Kelton Website
  • The Kelton Front Entrance

A Meaningful Name

One story in particular told how, as a young boy, one of the now elder statesman of the Edwards family would rest in the shade with the ranch hands when they would take a break from working the cattle. The ranch hands were surrogate fathers and big brothers to the Edwards boys and played a large role in shaping their young minds and teaching them a respect for the land. The idea was born to name the multi-family developments after these ranch hands. The first, is The Kelton.

The Kelton Case Study Logo Comparison

Brand Mark and Creative Suite

The brand mark needed to match the sophistication of the Clearfork area, but remain as approachable and welcoming as the Kelton. We wanted to tie the mark back to the history of the land, and the symbol of an open gate was a universal and welcoming sign of hospitality. The resulting mark feels authentic to the family and their history, but is modern enough to attract the right people to these luxury condos. 

The Kelton Stationary Set

Positioning the Kelton in Fort Worth

We also designed the website with the goal of giving people an idea of what surrounded this space. Up until its launch this was a largely unknown and unexplored area of Fort Worth, so we needed to connect people to the culture that surrounded it and the vision for what was being built up around it. To illustrate the soul of the Kelton, we photographed key parts of the city that helped paint a picture of the lifestyle they wanted to portray at Clearfork and The Kelton.

A Brand Rooted in Authenticity

  • Brought the Kelton brand to life with a new creative suite
  • Created a brand that fits perfectly in the Clearfork family
Enter the Fold
Subscribe to our newsletter
Haha Haha Co. | Ft. Worth, Texas

© 2024 Haha Haha Co.
Privacy | Sitemap

Best Places for Working Parents (2024)
microsoft partner
Company
Expertise

Get in Touch

1228 S. Adams St.
Fort Worth, TX 76104
817.226.4332
hello@hahahaha.xyz
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Linkedin