Restoring the image of a cultural award

Since 2005, the regional cooperative of the orange giant has awarded an annual prize to an artist selected directly by a panel of arts professionals. Each year, the choice was made within a different artistic discipline.

The organizer wanted to open up this award to a wider audience and turn it into a real competition starting in 2023. Above all, they wanted to spread the word, especially to future participants. That's where we came in.

Our first initiative was to propose a unique visual identity for the award to highlight the change in direction. To achieve this, we wanted an approach that focused on the essentials.

We chose to create pictograms to symbolize the five arts covered by the award: music, literature, cinema, dance, and visual arts. Combined with the instantly recognizable orange "M," these symbols formed logos that immediately identified the link between Migros and the arts.

After a year of work, however, the client asked us to align our visual communication with that of the "cultural percent," the organization that supports culture for Migros at the national level. A stylized capital "M" and heart are the essential elements of this visual charter. To respond to this new strategy, we integrated them into our new graphic approach.

The aim was to subtly illustrate the various artistic fields covered by the award. We chose excerpts from engravings representing them, which we were able to use in posters and flyers. At the same time, we also did a photo and video shoot with the jury members. The goal was to kick off the promotional campaign. Because if the cultural award wanted to be more popular, it had to be shouted from the rooftops!

We then called on ourcreative partners, a collective of public relations and content creation specialists who brought their skills to bear on this bilingual campaign. Virginie and Patrick prepared a communication plan that began with the launch of the call for projects for the award in September 2022. This was structured around a cross-media campaign, combining traditional media such as posters and mailings with digital media and the use of social networks.

Our specifications also included organizing a press conference. However, due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to cancel it at the last minute. Media communications were then carried out through direct contact with various editorial offices. Nevertheless, the response was satisfactory, and numerous mentions of the competition appeared in various digital and traditional media outlets.

What would the impact be? No one could imagine precisely at this stage. After two weeks, only a few applications had reached the cooperative's secretariat. But at the end of the two-month application period, 111 projects had been submitted on time, more than half of which met all the selection criteria and could be submitted to the jury!

It's safe to say that the communication campaign and launch of this new award were a real success!

In May 2023, the jury for the 2023 Migros Neuchâtel-Fribourg Cultural Award met to evaluate the applications of the five selected finalists and choose a winner.

After two rounds of voting, Guillaume Brandt's project "Les songes du filmeur endormi" (The Dreams of the Sleeping Filmmaker) won the majority of votes. He is the winner of the 2023 Migros Neuchâtel-Fribourg Cultural Award and will receive CHF 50,000 to produce his documentary on the life of his grandfather, Neuchâtel-based director and photographer Henry Brandt, a major figure in Swiss cinema from the 1950s to the 1980s.