CASE STUDY
Eat. Learn. Play
Refreshing Eat. Learn. Play’s compelling brand to elevate their mission
Challenge
Eat. Learn. Play. is an Oakland-based public charity dedicated to unleashing the amazing potential of every child. Founded in 2019 by four-time NBA champion and two-time MVP Stephen Curry and entrepreneur, host and two-time New York Times best-selling author Ayesha Curry, Eat. Learn. Play. launched with a focus on improving the lives of kids and families in Oakland, the Bay Area and across the country. Rooted in three of the most vital pillars for a healthy childhood—nutrition, education and physical activity — Eat. Learn. Play. works to ensure that every child in Oakland has access to the nutritious food they need to be healthy and thrive; resources to learn and love to read; and safe places and equitable opportunities to play. The organization has been on an amazing journey since their inception, creating meaningful impact for the community it serves. Nearing their four-year mark, they recognized the need to hone in and more effectively communicate the scope and scale of their work at the highest level—elevating their mission to tell a concise and compelling story about what makes them special, and their continued impact on the Oakland community.
Solutions
To understand how similar organizations were talking about their work and missions, we underwent a deep immersion in the space. We also spoke with Eat. Learn. Play.’s stakeholders and staff to understand the organization’s impact to date and uncovered key themes that weren’t coming through in their current communications. To elevate these themes, we created a brand strategy that showcased the full scope of their mission to bring the uniqueness of Eat. Learn. Play.’s work to life. Then, to activate the refreshed strategy and drive content creation, we created a set of voice principles to guide their tone of voice and a set of key messages that could flex across primary audiences, such as donors and program partners. We included a range of updated content to demonstrate how this new voice and messaging could be activated across channels. We also developed a brand narrative, to tie together the strategy and verbal expression to tell the story of who Eat. Learn. Play is and highlight the meaningful work they are doing across the Oakland community.
Using the brand strategy as a foundation, we then created a new visual system including a refreshed logo design and color palette. Eat. Learn. Play relaunched their brand and mission in 2023, as part of that, we produced a brand anthem video meant to not only inform and educate audiences, but also to build excitement about the refreshed mission and strategy. The video was produced to be used for donor presentations and eventually for their refreshed website.
Results
The overall brand refresh and anthem video positions Eat. Learn. Play for their future growth, but also helps them deliver on their commitment to change the school experience for a generation of Oakland students. Across Eat. Learn. Play social media channels, the brand anthem video received over 4 million total impressions. Around the time of the video launch, Eat. Learn. Play announced their enhanced strategic vision and goal to raise $50 million in additional educational support and resources for students in Oakland by end of the 2026 school year.
“We are so grateful for the work the Prophet team created for Eat. Learn. Play. They approached the overall project with an impressive level of passion, joy, care, and professionalism. Our brand narrative, voice, messaging, and visuals are much stronger now than when we started this work together. Their strategic and thoughtful approach helped to unlock so many invaluable insights for Eat. Learn. Play. I can’t recommend the Prophet team highly enough.”
Chris Helfrich
Chief Executive Officer
Eat. Learn. Play.
