Student Veterans of America
Inspiring tomorrow's leaders today.
A Good Problem.
In November 2018, Student Veterans of America had what you might consider a “good problem” on its hands — it was considerably larger in scope and influence than it appeared. With over 1,500 chapters across the country, comprised of more than 750,000 students who had returned home from military service, SVA wanted to convey its power in numbers, but was having a challenging time projecting its important voice across the country.
This is where Brand Knew stepped in.
Same Mission, New Look.
With limited changes to SVA’s branding since its inception in 2008, it was well time for a refresh. It was important that SVA retain its perception of tradition and maturity, while also bringing in modernism and an aura of simplicity it had yet to explore. Within a few months, the Brand Knew team relaunched the SVA brand with a new, more approachable look and feel, alongside comprehensive brand guidelines that included logo usage parameters, approved color palettes, typography fonts, collateral and more.
Another branding challenge presented itself in shepherding SVA’s numerous chapters towards adoption of the Student Veterans of America naming convention. In the logo exploration, Brand Knew assigned a chapter-adaptable word mark that could be shared with chapter leaders towards personalization. This would allow incorporation of their school name, while still visually remaining a part of the grand SVA infrastructure. Chapters across the country have been enthusiastically adopting these designs for their own usage, creating a more cohesive and recognizable mark across all pieces of the organization.
Celebrating with Social.
In order to tackle the challenge of developing a new brand message for SVA, Brand Knew carefully considered the types of content the SVA audience found most engaging. Amongst an organization of more than 750K members, there was a clear, missed opportunity to celebrate all the incredible accomplishments of its committed constituents. Student veterans are a cooperative band of supportive community members, interested in learning about and rallying around the successes of other student veterans.
Brand Knew facilitated a significant shift in SVA’s messaging towards a focus on the members of the veteran community who were making the biggest impact in the veteran space, and began celebrating their achievements on campuses across the country by highlighting them on social accounts. In the process, Brand Knew crafted beautiful design elements that help to bring these stories to life in engaging, attention worthy and shareable ways.
Celebrating with Social.
In order to tackle the challenge of developing a new brand message for SVA, Brand Knew carefully considered the types of content the SVA audience found most engaging. Amongst an organization of more than 750K members, there was a clear, missed opportunity to celebrate all the incredible accomplishments of its committed constituents. Student veterans are a cooperative band of supportive community members, interested in learning about and rallying around the successes of other student veterans.
Brand Knew facilitated a significant shift in SVA’s messaging towards a focus on the members of the veteran community who were making the biggest impact in the veteran space, and began celebrating their achievements on campuses across the country by highlighting them on social accounts. In the process, Brand Knew crafted beautiful design elements that help to bring these stories to life in engaging, attention worthy and shareable ways.
Gathering the Troops.
Student Veterans of America is an organization for which success is partly predicated on live events. These tentpole moments are geared towards empowering current college students. New SVA branding has been released across a variety of formats to invigorate SVA in-person events with a new bold spirit and feeling of unity. These events include chapter-focused Summits around the country, an annual Leadership Institute in Washington D.C., and most importantly, SVA’s National Conference, more commonly known as NatCon. As the largest annual gathering of student veterans in the country, NatCon 2020 has played a crucial role in bringing the organization recognition on a national level.
We’re Doing it LIVE.
With NatCon 2020 hosted in Downtown Los Angeles, the Brand Knew team served SVA in our own backyard, providing the 2,500 student veterans in attendance with real-time updates and activation opportunities to make the most of the on-site experience. In tandem, Brand Knew connected with thousands of digital supporters who were following along from home, offering a front row seat to some of the weekend’s most pivotal moments.
Throughout the three-day event, Brand Knew’s on-the-ground team executed a carefully planned creative strategy across power-packed 16-hour days, including high-profile talent activations and daily live streams, leading the weekend narrative on social media, and bringing SVA’s audience along for the journey. Brand Knew collaborated with Paralympic snowboarder Kirstie Ennis, Marine-turned-actor Rudy Reyes, former Miss USA Deshauna Barber, GRAMMY Nominated singer MAJOR., and motivational speaker Simon Sinek. By the time the awards banquet had wrapped on Sunday night, SVA’s social media channels had garnered over 230,000 organic impressions, 54,000 IG Story views and nearly 18,000 engagements across the SVA community.
We’re Doing it LIVE.
With NatCon 2020 hosted in Downtown Los Angeles, the Brand Knew team served SVA in our own backyard, providing the 2,500 student veterans in attendance with real-time updates and activation opportunities to make the most of the on-site experience. In tandem, Brand Knew connected with thousands of digital supporters who were following along from home, offering a front row seat to some of the weekend’s most pivotal moments.
Throughout the three-day event, Brand Knew’s on-the-ground team executed a carefully planned creative strategy across power-packed 16-hour days, including high-profile talent activations and daily live streams, leading the weekend narrative on social media, and bringing SVA’s audience along for the journey. Brand Knew collaborated with Paralympic snowboarder Kirstie Ennis, Marine-turned-actor Rudy Reyes, former Miss USA Deshauna Barber, GRAMMY Nominated singer MAJOR., and motivational speaker Simon Sinek. By the time the awards banquet had wrapped on Sunday night, SVA’s social media channels had garnered over 230,000 organic impressions, 54,000 IG Story views and nearly 18,000 engagements across the SVA community.
A Running Start.
As an early kickoff at NatCon 2020, the Brand Knew team launched a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign called A Running Start. The foundation of the program would allow for student veterans and supporters to run, walk, bike or climb in support of SVA, accumulating funds for their achievements by setting personal goals that would then translate into donations. As the first of its kind, we wanted to make a splash with the announcement. Brand Knew worked with SVA to arrange for ten treadmills to be stationed in the lower lobby of the conference for 24 hours, and encouraged student veterans to sign up for fifteen-minute time slots to ‘run for a cause.’ Treadmills were running all day and through the night as students showed up to contribute a run or walk, socialize with onlookers, or just to gaze upon SVA President and CEO, Jared Lyon running in a jacket and tie. On Saturday afternoon, Pat Tillman Award recipient Kirstie Ennis, hosted a live challenge, asking student veterans to run as far as they could, while she simultaneously interviewed them about their backgrounds and personal accomplishments. This light-hearted broadcast was paired with the sharing of her personal story, as she discussed how critical physical activity can be and its undeniable impact on emotional well-being and mental health. In total, this campaign surpassed our set KPI by 1.5X in impressions, while accumulating 233 miles overall. But it was the attention caught by corporate partner Raytheon that solidified our success. As a direct response to our efforts, on the final evening, Raytheon announced a $1M match promise to Student Veterans of America to be used in future peer-to-peer fundraising opportunities.
A Brave Response.
Within a few months, in the summer of 2020, we were braving a global pandemic, and like their civilian counterparts, thousands of student veterans across the country would be missing the traditional celebrations of a graduation ceremony. Much of the student veteran community had waited years to walk across a graduation stage, and while SVA wouldn’t be able to provide them with a true in-person graduation experience, Brand Knew helped the organization in developing a way to honor these students’ remarkable achievements. The Brand Knew team developed a fully produced virtual ceremony, dedicated to the student veterans all over the U.S. who would be home celebrating from their living rooms, branded Home With the Brave: A Graduation Salute. Speeches and congratulatory remarks were solicited from leading graduating student veterans, celebrity talent, SVA Alumni, and veteran supporters. Dozens of videos were sent in from all over the country and used to produce an hour-long celebratory show. It was published as a ‘live premiere’ on Facebook and accrued 180,000 views, with thousands of engagements in a first-of-its-kind graduation ceremony.
A Brave Response.
Within a few months, in the summer of 2020, we were braving a global pandemic, and like their civilian counterparts, thousands of student veterans across the country would be missing the traditional celebrations of a graduation ceremony. Much of the student veteran community had waited years to walk across a graduation stage, and while SVA wouldn’t be able to provide them with a true in-person graduation experience, Brand Knew helped the organization in developing a way to honor these students’ remarkable achievements. The Brand Knew team developed a fully produced virtual ceremony, dedicated to the student veterans all over the U.S. who would be home celebrating from their living rooms, branded Home With the Brave: A Graduation Salute. Speeches and congratulatory remarks were solicited from leading graduating student veterans, celebrity talent, SVA Alumni, and veteran supporters. Dozens of videos were sent in from all over the country and used to produce an hour-long celebratory show. It was published as a ‘live premiere’ on Facebook and accrued 180,000 views, with thousands of engagements in a first-of-its-kind graduation ceremony.
United Front.
As an organization committed to the success of student veterans, Brand Knew is proud to have worked alongside SVA in meaningfully bringing together this massive community of nearly 800,000 students across the country. Because of this partnership, SVA is now able to build upon a newly-renovated foundation that allows for the organization to pronounce a stronger brand narrative, reach a wider audience, and in turn, impact a greater number of student veterans through its programs and services.
