Client Results

Cornerstone Case Study 1

Problem

How do we identify, reach, and leverage audiences critical to our success?

Solution

Some key demographics integral to the electoral success of political candidates are largely disengaged, unregistered, suspicious, detached, or overtly hostile to the appeals of traditional campaigns. Perceived as both critical and unreachable at once, most candidates and their campaigns flounder in efforts to message and reach them for Election Day turnout.

In particular, Democrats are enormously dependent upon several key demos with which Cornerstone has tremendous impact, influence and reach. Converting these demos from the sidelines to active players and champions is increasingly critical in a more divided electoral economy with aggressive efforts to deleverage specific demos.

Cornerstone has a proven track record of converting these demos into active agents and passionate supporters, giving them their own unique voice, attaching difficult to garner thought leaders and influencers as validators and ensuring that they do two specific things that matters: talk to friends/post online and vote!

Cornerstone’s unique experiences, skill sets, and relationships make the impossible doable and the unthinkable likely to happen. Creating actionable connections between candidates and causes is what Cornerstone does, and does better and more stealthily than anyone else today. Organically and quietly, we draw candidates closer to demos and demos closer to candidates, seamlessly integrating and aligning interests of both.

Cornerstone Case Study 2

Problem

America’s healthcare system and government have failed the most vulnerable population in America during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Black community is both underserved and suspicious of the Trump administration and healthcare in general. The lingering effect of the Tuskegee “experiment” has overwhelmed the ability of leaders to caution and serve the Black community during this dark period. How can we create and leverage trusted voices and cause people to act in their own self interest?

Solution

Government and healthcare were in disarray globally. Those without prescriptions from their primary care physicians could not even get tested. Hospitals were closed. Public health centers were shuttered. Only those with significant access to elite medicine or could access hospitals. Instead of providing access, hospitals were closed fortresses hiding behind ivy-clad walls with no answers or vision for the future of healthcare. And if you were admitted to a hospital, people were fearful of dying alone. Simply getting tested for COVID -19 during April, May and June of 2020 was nearly impossible as both government and healthcare institutions had limited supplies and trust. No one, except the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium was able to test at a scale that made a difference and enjoyed the trust of people compromised by social determinants of health and political confusion.

In the midst of this perfect storm, trusted doctors, faith leaders, and legacy organizations had to act independently of government and the healthcare system to provide for the communities they serve faithfully. The solution required leveraging the skills, integrity, trust, and charisma of one or multiple leaders who could stabilize the loss of trust at global levels and act at a local or regional scale. Cornerstone’s leadership worked with innovative healthcare professionals to chart a path forward with churches, mosques, civic and Greek organizations, labor unions, and other trusted partners to turn parking lots and sanctuaries into veritable field hospitals. Places that were once used for worship were transformed into places for healing. Institutions that normally collected offerings became financial supporters and trusted partners. Leaders trusted Cornerstone’s leadership, and they transferred the trust that they had garnered over decades to doctors and pastors who convinced skeptical to trust them, follow the best science available, and influence government and the private sector to invest in a new entity at the height of COVID-19’s darkness.

Cornerstone generated real and sustained partnerships, created perfect-pitch messaging, leveraged earned media, generated millions of dollars in new philanthropy and government grants and contracts to launch and fund the initiative. This unique crisis-to-success opportunity with measurable revenue and unmatched public good will is one of the most important success stories of the anemic. Cornerstone knows how to create things in moments of high visibility that have enormous impact.

Cornerstone Case Study 3

Problem

A major Hollywood studio released film (Hidden Figures) must span the cultural and audience chasm of American patriotism in the 1960s and the Black community to be a box office success. The cultural politics of the day, waning box office revenue and potentially dated content and themes seriously undermine potential success. How do we make a Black movie “wider and whiter” at box office to create a financial success and Oscar award contender for a studio and still honor the hearts and triumph of Black women?

Solution

The challenge of creating patriotic content with Black actors for a wide audience is like playing a “fiddle on a roof.” It’s tough and almost impossible. The increasingly stark lines between audiences today is reflective of the national political environment. A divided America has created a more complex ecosystem for content marketing and audience aggregation. Cornerstone’s partners designed and executed the global campaign for Fox Studios and positioned the film for Oscar Award contentionIt is widely known as one of the most adroit marketing campaigns in recent film history.

Creating a context where Black audiences “owned” Hidden Figures but were not able to “hold it hostage” allowed a “wider and whiter” approach to advanced marketing, junket messaging, a national screening program, and deployment of the content in schools, military bases, the US Congress, and the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.

For White male audiences, the other marketing demo target, we deployed messaging that heartened back to the Cold War era, space discovery, and patriotism. The takeaway for this audience was that “only in America” can everyone have access opportunity, compete, and become a hero while beating the Russians. The two significantly polar demos and messages traveled separately and met up like converging rivers that spilled into a larger ocean of box office revenue. Cornerstone knows how to create amplified awareness and design and execute a revenue model supported by storytelling and marketing.