Brand Development | Whitney M. Young Jr. Memorial Conference

About the Brand Development Project

The Whitney M. Young (WMY) Conference is The Wharton School’s African American MBA Association’s (AAMBAA) premier annual event that celebrates the legacy of the author, humanitarian, educator, and civil rights activist Whitney M. Young Jr. Within AAMBAA.

Black communities have thrived from a history of strong ancestors and inspiring predecessors. Generation after generation owes their accomplishments and history-making to those who paved the way before them. Creative Repute was hired to assist the Whitney M. Young Jr. Conference team in crafting taglines, overall brand development, and designing digital and print marketing materials.

The 49th Annual Whitney M. Young Jr. Memorial Conference celebrates the importance and power of advancing Black legacies. The conference aims to highlight the importance of not only leaving one’s own footprint but empowering one’s surrounding communities to achieve further success. Advancing Black Legacy: Onward and Upward aims to showcase leaders of both the past and the future and their role in innovating both the business and civic realms.

Creative Repute was hired to help the WMY Conference team in crafting taglines, overall branding, and designing a series of digital and print marketing materials for the conference as well as the gala and after-party.

Aptly named Advancing Black Legacy, WMY49 aimed to highlight the responsibility of today’s business leaders in the continued fight for Black liberation and explore the pathways to strategically unite our voices.

The WMY49 conference took place in person after several years of remote and hybrid sessions due to Covid.

It was important to understand the audience’s emotions after a global pandemic to help this client transition successfully from a remote and hybrid conference in prior years to an in-person conference. A strong, captivating, and impactful design was necessary to make a statement and draw the audience out of their comfort zone to attend the in-person event.

Our Approach to Brand Development

Creative Repute started the design with a detailed discovery process. We reviewed the past history and the performance of branding concepts of prior years, the current emotional climate of recovering from a pandemic, the client’s goal and mission, and the target audience we were designing for.

Creative Repute started the design with a detailed discovery process. We reviewed the past history and the performance of branding concepts of prior years, the current emotional climate of recovering from a pandemic, the client’s goal and mission, and the target audience we were designing for.

With the client’s goals and mission in mind, the Creative Repute design team prepared a style guide that was in line with the general style guide of the school yet it was bold enough to make a statement and stand out.

All the information gathered in the kick-off meeting and during the discovery process helped our design team make an informed decision and design choices to set the WMY 49 conference apart from prior years.

Throughout the design process, The CR team was in close communication with the client and the conference team to make sure their feedback is received and implemented.

Several initial style guides and design concepts were prepared and discussed with the internal team and the client team. The all-hands brainstorming sessions between the client team and our design team were crucial in communicating the vision and understanding different perspectives.

After a few iterations and when the style guide was finalized, our design team worked on preparing a short trailer video, social media posts, and stories and Canva templates for speaker announcements, gala announcements, sponsors, invitations, ticket purchasing, and several other posts.

The Creative Repute team also prepared all the print marketing materials, such as postcards, brochures, banners, agendas, posters, directional signs, pull-up banners, and slide decks.

Our team created a seamless design across multiple channels, a design that is impactful, bold, purpose-driven, and targeted. Our team also provided the client with some general blank templates to be used later as needed.

Client’s Mission

For 49 years, the African American MBA Association (AAMBAA) has held the Whitney M. Young Jr. Memorial Conference. This is the Wharton School’s longest-running, student-led conference with 400+ attendees.

The Whitney M. Young Jr. Memorial Conference is a forum for prominent Black business and civic leaders to discuss trends disrupting a breadth of industries and functional areas and drive thoughtful dialogue on how to champion innovation with mature enterprises and new ventures.

In 2022, the WMY conference team aimed to celebrate the advancement of Black legacy and empowerment of our communities through workshops, speaker sessions, and the continuation of our Small Business Series and New Venture Competition.