Reintroducing the Scouts to a New Generation
How a 100-year-old brand reconnected with kids and parents through the joy of scouting.
My Role
Creative Direction | Brand Strategy | Copywriting | Campaign Strategy
The Problem
An old brand was losing the next generation.
The Boy Scouts of America had a recognition problem, but not the kind most brands face. Everyone knew who they were, but scouting had become something parents did when they were kids, not something they imagined for their own. Membership was declining. Kids were pulled in a hundred other directions, screens, sports, clubs, after-school programs. The brand wasn't doing enough to stand out.
The Scouts needed to remind kids and parents what scouting was about, and why it still mattered.
The Approach
Define the words before you live by them.
The Scouts had a new tagline, "Prepared. For Life." What they didn't have was a shared sense of what it actually meant. That's when they brought us in.
I started by digging into what it really means to be a Scout. Not the badges and the handbooks, but the lived experience: the moments that shape a kid into someone capable, curious, and kind. From there, I wrote a manifesto that brought the tagline to life.
The manifesto became the foundation for the updated brand guidelines and everything that followed.
The Work
Built around the moments that make a Scout.
The campaign rolled out across TV, print, radio, and digital. Every execution led with what scouting actually feels like: the moment a kid lights their first fire, gets to the top of a hike, learns something about themselves they didn't know yesterday. Copy stayed direct and grounded. No nostalgia, no defensiveness, no sermon. Just adventure, agency, and the quiet pride of figuring things out.
Using the manifesto as an anchor, we developed the brand guidelines to lead with the experience.
The print ads leaned into the badge as a symbol of personal growth rather than just focusing on achievement.
TV spots highlighted the fun and joy one can find in scouting. Note: We could not talk the client out of using this music.
We used the radio spots to speak to parents with a clear message that stayed true to the new brand direction.
The Result
A stronger foundation for a brand that needed one.
The work gave the Scouts a clearer, more inspiring brand voice and a campaign that finally talked about scouting on its own terms. The narrative shifted from controversy to connection. Recruiting materials and chapter-level communications had a unified tone for the first time in years. And the manifesto gave a 100-year-old organization something it badly needed: a fresh way to say what it stood for.