I t ’s not ver y of ten in th is industr y that we get the chance to work on a brand or product that t ru ly makes a d i f ference in the wor ld . Or in people ’s l ives . And as students , we rare ly get the chance to create work that gets produced. Outs ide the wal ls of 103 South Jefferson that is .

I ’ ve been lucky enough dur ing my two years as a Brandcenter student to work on a brand that l i tera l ly saves l ives . Chi ldren’s l ives . Thousands of them, in fact . Increas ingly more each year . Some of those because of our ef for ts . Just in case that wasn’ t enough incent ive to work on th is brand, I ’ve a lso been able to help br ing a tremendously meaningfu l creat ive campaign to l i fe . Twice.

In 2007, Dav id Droga presented h is idea of the Tap Pro ject to U N I CEF. And they immediate ly jumped on board. His idea was s imple . But , in my opin ion, br i l l iant . He proposed that dur ing Wor ld Water Week in New York Ci t y , restaurants would ask their patrons to donate one dol lar for tap water . Water that they ’d normal ly receive for f ree . And, in return , the money ra ised would go to countr ies a l l over the wor ld , where c lean water is not ava i lab le . Where their lack of c lean and access ib le dr ink ing water is a leading cause of death , especia l ly in chi ldren. Water that most of us take for granted.

One dol lar is actual ly enough to prov ide a chi ld with c lean dr ink ing water for 40 days , or to g ive 40 chi ldren c lean water for one day. The Tap Pro ject ’s in i t ia l launch in New York was so successfu l that in 2008 other c i t ies were asked to jo in in the effor ts . One of those c i t ies happened to be Richmond, VA. More speci f ica l ly - The VCU Brandcenter .

Most c i t ies that work on the Tap Pro ject have agencies creat ing their campaigns . I th ink i t says a lot about the cal iber of our program and our students that the Brandcenter was chosen as Richmond’s ‘agency.’ And I couldn’ t be happier , prouder or more gratefu l for the oppor tuni t y .

For the past 3 years , the so le focus of Tap has been on the par t ic ipat ing restaurants , and dr iv ing people to them dur ing World Water Week. And for us, that meant focusing on Richmond. However , th is year we were tasked with a new chal lenge: U N I CEF asked us to come up with addi t ional fundra is ing tact ics

that could l ive beyond the restaurants , and i f we wanted - beyond Wor ld Water Week.

In t rue Brandcenter fashion, we accepted th is chal lenge and went to work . We’ve cer ta in ly had our share of obstacles in the process , but we couldn’ t be happier with what we’ve created. Or the pos-s ib i l i t ies that l ie ahead.

This year ’s ‘There ’s Hope in Rain ’ campaign is inv i t ing people a l l over the countr y to donate $1 for ever y inch of ra in that fe l l in the i r c i t y in the past 30 days . We’ve produced a number of d i f ferent pr int and promot ional execut ions that dr ive people to our websi te: www.hopeinra in .org . On our s i te , people can choose their c i t y , or the one c losest to them. They are then shown the ra infa l l

( in inches) over the last 30 days and given the oppor tuni t y to donate accordingly . Our main goal is to put a pos i t ive sp in on what ’s usual ly cons idered to be bad weather . We may not be able to contro l or predict the weather , but we’d l ike to make i t count . With your help , of course .

By not only achiev ing the object ive that U N I CEF set for us , but surpass ing i t , we’ve g iven Tap the oppor tuni t y to l ive beyond the restaurants and have a much greater reach than just Richmond. By encouraging people to donate their c i t y ’s ra infa l l to a greater good, we’ve begun a nat ionwide movement . Our campaign inst i l l s hope in Apr i l showers th is year . We are g iv ing them the power to send c lean, access ib le dr ink ing water to chi ldren in Togo, Centra l Afr ican Republ ic , V ietnam, Guatemala , & Hai t i . And i t ’s a great fee l ing!

2010 Richmond Tap Project Team: Kendal l Beveridge CBM / Alber t Kugel CBM / Ryan Gal lagher CS / Maureen McFee CT / Sharon Showalter CT / Grace Harris CW / Sarah Ingl is AD & 1st Year Students: Jack Inscoe CT / Abbey Dethlefs CBM / Vasi l i Upensky CBM / Danny Shepelwich CS

SOC IAL N ETWORK I NG

In addition to a variety of print and promotional executions, we created a twitter page to create buzz about our campaign and star t soem conversat ions. We also set-up the abi l i t y to tweet and post to your facebook wal l direct ly from our si te.