Happy Happy Toys
For my project, I chose to do a multi-channel advertising campaign for a fictitious non-profit organization called Happy Happy Toys. Because I wasn’t sure whether I’d be moving back to Germany in the middle of the semester, I decided to choose something I could finish no matter where I was living. The idea for Happy Happy Toys originated as an idea my wife and I had considered a few years back. We had talked about starting some kind of online toy exchange or donation system that would help less fortunate children. Perhaps with this project as a foundation, Happy Happy Toys can become a reality.
For the presentation booth, I wanted to not just showcase the work I had done on the campaign, I wanted to recreate the feeling of Happy Happy Toys. To do that, I decorated the table with examples of toys and other play things that children might wish for. I laid out books, teddy bears, and toys that might help a child play out a dream job.
Aside from toys, visitors are able to see examples from the advertising campaign, such as the 60 second TV spot and a social media video. Of course, visitors could also look through the campaign book and style guide, which you will find in digital format below.
The Process
The birth of Happy Happy Toys required the creation of the brand, including the background story and the brand image. This was probably the most exhausting aspect of the project and certainly the most time consuming. I spent nearly 20 hours researching other organizations, brainstorming philosophies, mission statements, and organizational structures. There were times, I felt this was overkill, but I didn’t give up. In the end, it gave me a very clear understanding of the market I wanted Happy Happy Toys to penetrate and message I wanted to relay to the target audience.
After I better understood the mission of Happy Happy Toys, I began working on the brand elements such as finalizing a name and a logo. The name comes from the way children shout nonsensical words or phrases when they are very excited. I envisioned a child opening a present and seeing exactly what they had wished for. They jump up and down, shouting, “Oh! Happy! Happy! I’m so happy!”
The logo shows a group of children jumping and dancing under a rainbow. I wanted to use the primary colors because they are not only associated with children, they also represent trust, security, comfort, positivity, passion, action, and harmony. The rainbow is a universal symbol for hope and new beginnings. I felt this was a very fitting symbol, and I adapted the rainbow and utilized it in a lot of the advertisements throughout the campaign.
The next step was to start on the actual advertising campaign. This involved doing research on a target audience and other organizations, to determine behaviors and patterns within the market of non-profits. Happy Happy Toys enjoys a position within a very unique niche market. It is neither purely a toy donation organization like Toys for Tots, nor is it a wish granting organization like Make A Wish. It is basically a combination of the two organization, so I used them as models to see how they advertise. I also used my own judgements based on the current effectiveness of company’s using social media to engage with their audiences. You will find more details in the campaign book, which I have attached to the project report.
“The Dreams of Tomorrow are Playing Today.”
The idea of the campaign is based on how children play out the dreams of certain jobs or careers by pretending to be that person, such as a police officer, pilot, or doctor. They often use toys and other play things to transform themselves. The tagline for this campaign is, “the Dreams of Tomorrow are Playing Today.” I chose this tagline because children need to believe that their dreams can come true in order to discover what they’re passionate about or what they are good at. Without the chance to have these dreams, they will give up and never want to try to be something more or better. This is often the plight of children in need, whose families lack the means to buy them new toys, sports equipment, or even school supplies.
The campaign should raise awareness to the target audience of this problem, and position Happy Happy Toys as the charitable non-profit organization that grants children’s gift wishes at the most important times of their lives.
Getting the Media
I chose to use both online and traditional forms of advertising. Online is where the target audience spends a great deal of time, but I wanted to keep Happy Happy Toys competitive with other organizations, who still use a lot of traditional advertising such as television and magazines. For a complete listing of the media and a media plan, please refer to the campaign book.
Over three days, I visited friends and photographed or filmed their children playing and acting out different jobs. I wanted to show that with a few good pictures and videos, I could re-purpose a lot of material to use across different platforms. This way, I could create a recognizable brand that people would associate with Happy Happy Toys.
Below you will find some examples of the content I created for the campaign.
Conclusion
This has been one of the most challenging projects I have ever worked on and also the most fun. Taking an idea for a toy charity and turning it into a brand, then creating the advertising campaign to launch the organization has been the greatest learning experience of my time in college. I have been able to take what I have learned over the last three years and put it to use in a rewarding project. I have pushed the limits of my knowledge and experience to a level that has given me much greater confidence in my abilities.
Supplemental Materials
Campaign Book
Examples of Content
Attribution
All pictures and videos are original content, except for some pictures used for decoration in the campaign book, style guide and on the website. These images were all legally obtained on Unsplash or Pexels. The music used for the videos was obtained from Omnimusic at the time that BYU-Idaho still had a license.