Providence After School Alliance

Securing Youth Engagement: The AfterZone Brand

In order to reach the youth most in need, the AfterZones needed a strong brand - a complete identity for after school, one with personality, voice and style that appealed directly to middle school youth.

For help conceptualizing the AfterZones’ “social brand,” PASA enlisted Rescue Social Change Group, a progressive, youth-focused social marketing firm. By asking youth who attended after-school programming, and more importantly, those who did not, what they wanted from programming, a strategy was developed: to distinguish programming from the school day and to tailor programs to the identities of middle school youth, while having the AfterZone embody an image that fuses Latino and urban hip-hop cultures. Even the term “AfterZone” was coined through student input.

In creating AfterZone promotional material, youth voices were prominent in selecting images of youth in action: dancing, drawing, engaged.

The goal of this work was to create a new image for after-school programs, creating something youth would choose to participate in. After all, youth are the AfterZones.

The AfterZone “brand promise” focuses on helping youth be more independent, socially mature and culturally adept. Beyond simply creating an image, however, PASA’s after-school program providers deliver on that brand promise by creating programming that meets students’ needs, treats them like the maturing adolescents they are, provides voice and choice, and gives them independence within a structure of caring, supportive adults.