Rougarou Fest designs win creative gold award

If you were one of the hundreds who attended this past Saturday’s Rougarou Fest in Houma, you may already know that USA Today called it one of the 10 best Halloween costume parties in America.

What you may not know, however, is that those red rougarou pictures plastered all over downtown last weekend also were recognized by a internationally-renowned entity – Hermes Creative Awards.

That’s because White Car Marketing, based out of Thibodaux, recently found out it won a 2013 Hermes Creative Gold Award for its work on last year’s Rougarou Fest.

“It feels like it’s another win for us that’s just pushing this momentum that’s behind the festival,” said Jonathan Foret, one of the organizers of Rougarou Fest.

Foret enlisted White Car Marketing to help promote the Rougarou Fest prior to the 2013 event. White Car Marketing founder Cody Blanchard, who named the organization White Car after the literal translation of his last name, said his team provided much more than just the red “rougarou man” design including a font, promotional posters, commemorative posters, website launch and social media and marketing strategies.

The award, however, only recognized the creative aspects of White Car’s designs.

“It’s an honor,” said Blanchard on his help for a festival that serves as the primary fundraiser for the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center. “We’re very proud of our heritage here in Louisiana, and we know that there are issues with the coast disappearing. As a small business, it really gives us a chance to show what we can do as locals, but it also gave us an opportunity to raise awareness for the wetlands and what’s happening to our coast.”

Blanchard said creative designer Lornell Parfait and his team were the main forces behind achieving the award.

“Collaborative efforts among graphic design, content creation and project management were required to bring the concepts for this campaign to life,” Parfait said in a release. “Each team member’s individual talents definitely came together to conceptualize and execute this outstanding result, and it’s great to know our work can in turn benefit Louisiana’s coastlines.”

Blanchard said White Car began planning its creative and marketing strategies for this year’s Rougarou Fest six months out. He added that creating the commemorative posters takes about 60 t 70 hours of work, and creating logos can take 20 to 30 hours of work.

It’s all work that Foret appreciates wholeheartedly. He gave White Car the concept for the design, and he couldn’t be happier with the resulting red “rougarou-man.”

“I wanted something that could be a brand,” Foret explained. “When someone would see it, they would recognize it in association with the festival. I wanted it to be something very easy. It’s just good marketing. When people look at any of the major company logos, it’s a fairly simple logo that you recognize it with the product. That was part of the criteria, but I did want it to be more of a folklore character. I wanted it to be fun. Even though the Rougarou Fest takes place in October around Halloween, we didn’t want it to be something that is very scary, and I think that they’ve done a really good job in designing something that stays true to the folklore and the character of the rougarou but also made it very fun and makes it look like it’s something that you’d want to go to because it looks like the rougarou’s having a good time.”

Foret added that he’s very pleased with the special font created just for the Rougarou Fest also.

“It just works out so well with the framing of the ads so we’re really pleased with the design for sure and it’s something that we intend on continuing to use as we go to the festival,” said Foret.

Services provided by White Car include comprehensive marketing management and creative brand building. Visit whitecarmarketing.com for more info.