Belle of Louisville

What we did
Website

Visit Website belleoflouisville.org

See Louisville, Share Louisville.

When the Waterfront Development Corporation came to us asking for help on a nonprofit’s budget, we dove right in (see what we did there?). But unlike everyone else in the business, we weren’t content just making a new site for an old boat. We looked at the WDC’s business model and saw that, actually, there are two boats, and that the Spirit was an important revenue source that wasn’t being leveraged through its marketing strategy. It was always the runner-up to the Belle, a “second choice,” and therefore an inferior selection when looking for entertainment.

We completely rebuilt their brand from the bottom up, making it about enjoying Louisville from the river. This involved a thoroughly new marketing platform and graphic position, along with a full exploration of advertising and communication assets. And we did it all for the same low budget.

The river is at once where the past and future come together.

In 1778, George Rogers Clark established the area’s first permanent settlement, Corn Island, and which then very shortly thereafter led to the settlement of Louisville. Now, Louisville is one of the largest cities in America, a hub of commerce, a popular tourist and event destination, and a place where people from across the globe decide to put down roots and start families.

Our waterfront can be considered the very reason for our existence, our prosperity, and our success — and can also be viewed as an illustration of our appeal. The experience our waterfront and river offer to visitors, along with their views, define who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going.

If you want to share Louisville’s story, if you want to show how beautiful our city is, if you want to communicate its vast potential, its depth of offerings, or its visual presence and size, we invite you to do it through the river.

From the Shawnee who hunted and fished it to early settlers who depended on it for commerce and supplies, the vast, powerful, and beautiful Ohio has sustained Louisville for generations. Today it feeds the heart of a city that’s the epicenter of the world’s Bourbon craze, that fosters entrepreneurship and new technology . . . and that proudly calls itself home to visitors, families, and businesses alike. Our river is millions of years old. And yet, every time you look at it, it’s somehow new.