HOOF BEAT COUNTRY FEST REBRAND
CopywriterAgency: Loughran & Co
Client: Country Fest
Creative Director: PJ Loughran
Copywriter: Erin Scruggs
Designers: Cass Pokora, Rachel Cazares
Producer: Kara Saffrin
Client: Country Fest
Creative Director: PJ Loughran
Copywriter: Erin Scruggs
Designers: Cass Pokora, Rachel Cazares
Producer: Kara Saffrin
Summary
Country Fest is one of the longest standing and most beloved country music festivals in these United States. Their attendees start planning next year’s festival the second they get home, it’s that kind of thing. The name Country Fest, while explicit, didn’t fully evoke the spirit of everything the “largest party in a cornfield” had to offer. So, they enlisted Loughran & Co (now Quartermaster) to rebrand the Cadott, Wisconsin country music festival as Hoof Beat. My Approach
After settling on a shiny new name, they needed a brand framework, which is where I came in. The client’s feedback throughout the pitch process gave me a solid picture of how they viewed their festival, how their fans viewed their festival, how their festival was positioned, and how those three perspectives overlapped, or needed to overlap.I then looked to their social content. With a brand this established, there’s already so much in place that all I needed to do was boil it down the basics of what I saw. This distillation process turned into the brand postioning statement. It’s proprietary, so I can’t share it verbatim, but it talks a lot about boots, hayfields, and the can’t-miss-this-ness of the weekend.
On the visual side, I worked closely with the designers to name brand colors and provide slogans and catch phrases for poster mocks. And under the guidance of my creative director, I followed the brand positioning statement with messaging pillars, tone of voice, and audience personas. All in service of the new moniker: Hoof Beat Country Fest.
Sampling of the Final Creative
The new name was announced during the 2024 festival to much fanfare (aka a drone show spelling out my 10/10 catchphrase: Wild, Wild, Wisco) and mixed reviews from a lot of booze-fueled hayfielders. We get it, change can be scary! But it’s all for the good of the party.
