Raising awareness for the Affordable Connectivity Program in Partnership with Comcast and Baltimore City Office of Information Technology

Wide Angle Youth Media’s social enterprise program, Wide Angle Productions (WAP), provides media and communications services for nonprofits and organizations in the Baltimore region while creating meaningful employment for youth ages 18-24. WAP offers design, video and photography services that craft compelling stories and graphic design projects for organizations and businesses that strive to make Baltimore a healthier, happier city. Below is a recent project that we’re excited to highlight!

Impressed by what our team can accomplish? You can hire us to tell your story.

Creating the Bmore Connected Campaign

Wide Angle Youth Media (WAYM) partnered with Comcast and Baltimore City Office of Information Technology to build out a brand system for Baltimore City’s new Affordable Connectivity Program to raise awareness throughout the city. Our team’s goal was to bring an authentic Baltimore City voice to the campaign. We created designs for social advertisements, print billboard ads, bus station posters, and Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) advertisements. The role of productions was to support the design team with a photoshoot and hand over edited/treated photos for the campaign. We worked as a team to align on a photo plan and creative direction. This campaign was the winner of the 2024 American Advertising Awards Baltimore Silver ADDY in the category of Cross Platform!

What Is ACP

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is a United States government-sponsored program aiming to support families with affordable router internet connection. The goal is to offshoot the broad band gap in the United States and raise awareness of the need for internet access at home. Several companies have signed on to participate in the program, including Verizon, Frontier, Spectrum, AT&T, and Comcast.

The ACP program currently enrolls only 30 percent of eligible Baltimore households - as a team we needed to target specific demographics and neighborhoods missing out on these benefits. Our team internally had planning meetings to prioritize neighborhoods so our awareness campaign can reach the right communities. We met with community and project partners, Comcast and Baltimore City Office of Information Technology, to align neighborhoods across the city with their informed approach.

At WAYM we have worked hard internally to think about digital equity and digital access. The broadband initiative aligned with WAYM’s current mission and values by supporting access to home wifi for an affordable rate, eliminating barriers of entry and allowing for better access to the high quality wifi access. While ideating and building out our concepts we pulled from the campaign’s mission to create our messaging, visual language, and campaign taglines.

Digital Equity in Baltimore City 

Digital equity in Baltimore City is a vast issue. There have been large efforts done by the team at Baltimore Digital Equity Coalition (BDEC) to narrow the gap in digital equity. Digital equity can be defined as but not limited to all individuals and communities having the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy and economy. Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services. 

A lot of Baltimore residents have been found to have connection to the internet via their phones but are lacking in having router connection at their home which impacts education, work, creativity, and access to information. This was noted when hearing from community members during our pre production stage and research. Our team engaged and learned about broadband deficiencies through BDEC meetings and community voice meetings held by the city. Additionally we got inspiration from other cities that have collaborated with EducationSuper Highway’s communication plan. 

Creating a New Layer of Collaboration at Wide Angle

Our Design team functioned as the creative leads, advocating for the visual experience of the Bmore Connected campaign. We led the design direction via pitch decks, moodboards, brand identity creation, and collateral creation. The team also worked on copywriting. This was our team’s first time leading the copywriting for a project so we learned a lot in this area.

Interview with our Apprentices

Learning more about the campaign with an Apprentice Lens

Brandon Towns (Arts2Work Apprentice - Multimedia Producer) is a Baltimore city native whose background comes in visual arts. Through both still photography and videography, Brandon hopes to tell not only portray his world view through his work but to also shed light on the often over looked beauty of his home town. Once a student at Wide Angle Youth media, he is now currently studying screen writing and animation, at Morgan State University.

Aiara Manning (Arts2Work Apprentice - Junior Designer & Assistant Media Educator) came up through Wide Angle’s high school programming. They have (in that time) worked with a broad scope of clients to make an impact on their local community in any way they can; be it through design, presentations, or even community outreach via canvassing at events around the city.

Sydney Smith (Design Intern) is a visual artist and aspiring Filmmaker born and raised in Baltimore. Her art has been recognized by Scholastic Art & Writing Awards while attending Carver Center for Arts and Technology for high school. After graduating from the Visual Arts Prime, she now attends Morgan State University majoring in Screenwriting and Animation while minoring in Sociology.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your role in the Bmore Connected Campaign.

BT: I was the lead photographer. I helped with pre-production including location scouting, helped with casting, was the day-of photographer, and color graded and corrected the photos.

SS: I was an intern designer on the Bmore Connected Campaign. My role was ideation, messaging, copywriting, pre-production, and assisting the lead designer during the photoshoot. 

AM: I was a junior designer on the project and shoot; so all the photos that were taken were going into collateral that we made like posters, MTA ads, Billboards, and so much more. I was also responsible for the finalized logo for the campaign.

Q: What were some of the most interesting discoveries you made while working on this project? About the design problem, yourself, or maybe about others?

SS: I learned a lot about the myths that are associated with programs such as ACP and the barriers that prevent people from being able to apply. It was eye opening to deep dive into the broad band gap and learn what is affecting our Baltimore City community. 

BT: One of the biggest takeaways is that there's more room for collaboration. We can offer more complete campaigns to clients, instead of pieces of it. It promoted a want for more collaboration between departments. This project also helped me further sharpen my photography skill set. I was able to pre visualize what photos the design team needed for their designs.

AM: Honestly, I learned that ACP existed in the first place! Plus that my family was actually a part of it. Like Sydney, I learned a lot more about the barriers to joining the program (and getting broadband access in general). For such a digitally driven world, there’s still quite a lot of systemic barriers to truly participate in it.

Q: This questions just for Brandon Towns: While productions create a lot of video content the team doesn’t work as much within photography. In what ways did this project expand your skill set?

BT: For me, my background was photography before I got into filmmaking so it was a refresher for me to get to work in this style of photography for print ads. 

One of the learning curves was working with such a big team. Typically it’s just me on a photo shoot so having a whole team of 10+ was interesting. We had a lighting department, people on tech reviewing the photos, a department handling the design, a casting director, and a hair and makeup person. 

This saved me time on having to adjust things. I could solely focus on capturing the image. It was helpful to have another set of eyes to review the photos - it was truly a team effort. It was the first shoot with our new apprentices so it was a good time to connect and get to know each other.

Q: Now with this project being done what were your biggest areas for improvements?

SS: This was a really big campaign and design job for me! Honestly, my biggest improvement was being able to contribute my ideas, concepts, and help direct the photoshoot/design to completion.

AM: Since working on this project my biggest improvement has been quick, repetitive template design–not just from this project, but also a project I was working on in tandem for OpenWorks! Another improvement of mine was finding my groove and design flow. I have a tendency to stay up kinda late when I design but this project realigned me. 

BT: Mainly this project helped me further sharpen my photography skill set and the ability to work with a large team.

In Conclusion

Digital equity in the US is vital and we hope our efforts will invigorate and inspire other cities to engage their citizens with a similar campaign design. We are grateful for the opportunity to share our students’ voices and design work with the city of Baltimore. 

When you are driving around Baltimore keep your eye out for our campaign designs on billboards and bus stations! Learn more about BCIT’s free or low-cost internet here. In addition, this fact sheet from the Federal Communications Commission includes a number of resources for participants, including a communications tool kit, and information on training.

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Lastly and most importantly, thank you to our project partners Baltimore City Office of Information Technology, Comcast, and EducationSuperHighway. 

MEET THE AUTHOR

Dan Flounders (Design Manager) is a Muslim printmaker and designer. He graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2021 with a degree in Design and Printmaking. Currently living in the West Baltimore community, Flounders has worked with a range of clients like AARP, PBS, Beyond Meat, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library and the Smithsonian.