When we build brands we build stories, and we are honored that Step Up and Innovation Protocol’s stories are intertwined.
Throughout 2022 we’ve had the opportunity to deepen our involvement in the Step Up community as co-collaborators, mentors, and partners. Being the presenting sponsor of Step Up’s blog has provided us with monthly moments of reflection. Throughout the year we’ve written about a wide range of topics for the Step Up community from introducing what a career in brand strategy looks like to brand strategy and design best practices to the many aspects of our partnership journey with Step Up.
As 2022 ends and we look toward 2023, we want to take a moment to express our gratitude for all the meaningful moments we’ve had with Step Up staff and the greater Step Up community.
2022 Highlights
11 Blog Posts
4 Events
23 Innovation Protocol Team Members Participated Across Events
1 Amazing Brand Program
January – May: The Step Up Brand Refresh
This year we had the honor of collaborating with Step Up on their brand refresh. Now, Step Up is heading into their 25th anniversary with a brand that feels truer to who they are today. We collaborated to build a brand that authentically represents the Step Up we know and love while giving the organization the runway to grow into the brand Step Up hopes to be in the future.
As we’ve written about before, the concept of ‘the guide’ is the heart of the refreshed Step Up brand. It’s rooted in the idea that Step Up believes in individualized success and promotes the success of the individuals they work with, not a pre-defined, one size fits all type of success.
This concept rings true throughout all of Step Up’s communications, events, interactions, and we are so proud to have partnered to bring it to life.
January – February: Step Up + IP Experienceship
This year IP hosted 4 girls for a two-week internship. Their time at IP culminated with a Capstone project where they carried out their very own brand effort, creating a brand concept and providing strategic rationale for its brand position, messaging, and visual direction.
March: Luminaries Career Coaching
Various IP team members developed meaningful relationships with Step Up young women in coaching sessions focused on developing interpersonal skills, defining values, goal setting, and
creating specific actions plans to achieve the goals that had been previously set. Many of these relationships lasted beyond the three required sessions as part of the program.
April: So You Wanna…Creative Career in Marketing
IP’s VP of Brand Strategy, Stacey Chapper, spoke on a panel with other accomplished professional women about the world of Brand Strategy, giving Step Up girls and young women an inside look into what a career in Brand Strategy consulting looks like.
July: Career Steps
IP Team members hosted a career exploration session with Step Up girls and young women. This session included an overview of Innovation Protocol and the work we do. It also provided a space for IP Team members to answer individual questions about the pivotal steps they took in their professional journeys to get where they are today.
September: Step Up Together Digital Summit
During Step Up Together, IP hosted a main stage session panel discussion. We used this time to briefly educate attendees on the practice of Brand Strategy and Design and to introduce the Step Up community to the discovery process and strategic rationale behind the development of Step Up’s brand refresh.
