Case Study
Tuscaloosa Has More Than One Good Side
CLIENT NAME: VISIT TUSCALOOSA
SCOPE: BRAND STRATEGY + IDENTITY
CAMPAIGN: TUSCALIFE
The Situation
College football is part of Tuscaloosa. A big part. But ask the people who live there and the story gets much bigger.
There are lakes and trails. Local businesses and college campuses. History, culture and traditions built over generations. Visit Tuscaloosa needed a brand capable of holding all of it — one residents could recognize as their own and visitors could discover for themselves.
So before deciding what Tuscaloosa should say, we listened to the people already saying it.
The Approach
We started by getting close to the community.
Our team dug into local plans and research, then sat down for one-on-one interviews and focus groups. Those conversations shaped the creative brief and early campaign concepts. As ideas developed, we brought them back to the community to listen again, refine the work and build trust in the direction. One idea kept making room for more: TuscaLIFE.
Summary
There’s More to Tuscaloosa Than Game Day
TuscaLIFE became a flexible brand platform rooted in the many ways people experience Tuscaloosa.
TuscaLakes.
TuscaLegends.
TuscaLuxury.
Game time. Lake time. Shopping time. History and whatever comes next.
Instead of asking Tuscaloosa to fit within a single story, TuscaLIFE created a way for many stories to belong to the same place.
A Brand Big Enough for the Community
The strongest parts of the existing identity stayed.
Visit Tuscaloosa’s original logo remained. So did Alabama crimson. Turquoise continued to recognize Shelton State Community College and Stillman College, two HBCUs with an important place in the community.
From there, we created a more connected brand system built to work across digital advertising, print and a reimagined website.
The result gave Visit Tuscaloosa a clearer way to share the community as a whole — while leaving plenty of room for the people, places and experiences within it to tell their own stories.
