Ontario Hunter Jumper Association 2023 Awards Banquet
OHJA is a 30-year-old, not-for-profit equestrian association, made up of over 2000 members across the province and in the US, who’s mandated is to support competitive riders through points tracking, programs, education, and rider recognition.
Industry
— Sports
— Associations
Branding to
— Advertising & promotion
The Situation
The organization had been deeply impacted by regulatory changes in funding resulting in a significant increase in membership dues without any added value to the members. Additionally, the lack of board engagement, and the introduction of a new powerful show promotor who was gaining influence and control over how the competitive showing environment was run, was fuelling overall competitor dissatisfaction, and bringing into question the relevance of the OHJA brand and its value.
The Human Catalyst
Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, and there’s no greater motivation to get people to event where that can happen.
The Solution
Building off the new brand creative platform, “For the love of competition” and the mandate to be more contemporary and forward thinking, Yield recommended a fully digital approach to communicating and promoting the event. Knowing that many of the attendees would be young riders we wanted to engage them through a multimedia digital recognition experience.
Digital ads were developed and place in the OHJA online magazine, a mobile event website was created so that when attendees arrived at the event and sat down at their reserved table there was a QR code that took them to our mobile event experience. This included a rundown of the night’s activities as well as they could search their results. It served up their riding division, name, place in the standings and awards they would be receiving. Additionally, digital screens surrounded the venue inside with a looping video highlighting the event theme as well as showcasing sponsor, rider and their standing along with picture from the season’s shows.
This experience and theme was embodied around the line “welcome to a night of celebrating our stars” whereby the focus was giving every rider their 15 minutes of fame. The theme was brought together through an animation sequence of shooting stars forming the new OHJA logo.
The Yield
The overall approach and theme inspired strong financial support from corporate sponsors that helped pay for the event, enhancing the overall experience. The event sold out and was the most attended event ever with lots of positive feedback from attendees to the president and board members.