Masters of Taste Case Study

Masters of Taste is an annual food and wine festival held at the Rose Bowl, benefitting Union Station Homeless Services. The event brings together over 100 Culinary, Sweet and Beverage Masters and 3,500+ attendees. For the 2022 Masters of Taste event, I developed and implemented the annual marketing strategies and led the graphic design efforts for all event touchpoints and print and digital marketing materials.

Design Package

I designed materials for all digital and physical touchpoints, including social media, email, printed menus, banners, sponsorship packets and directional signage.

The Challenges

Because this festival is a fundraising event organized by and benefitting Union Station Homeless Services, it was a challenge to make the connection between the event and the nonprofit organization while also maintaining a level of separation between both entities.

There was also no event map or app that showed locations of the booths to help attendees navigate the festival and find the booths and amenities they were searching for. Furthermore, from a graphic design, web development and marketing standpoint, the deadlines and work load of developing the vast quantity of design materials for all aspects of the event, including stanchions for the entrance and VIP lounges, menus and banners for each booth, sponsorship banners and wine barrels, sponsorship packets, graphics for emails and social media, and signage and menus for the media preview night, required a high level of time and project management to execute.

The Solutions

The marketing plan for the 2022 Masters of Taste prioritized high quality branded design templates and collaboration among staff to ensure that deadlines were met. Social media content for Union Station Homeless Services in the months leading up to Masters of Taste was planned to fit in with the event's theme and color scheme to ensure brand cohesion between the event and the organization.

While there was not enough resources or bandwidth to develop an event app, I created an interactive, branded Masters of Taste Google Map with the exact locations of the Master booths within the Rose Bowl Stadium, amenities, parking information, VIP lounges, and chef demo stages. Each Master entry included a photo of the business and/or logo in addition to the Master's menu offering for the event. The link to the map was email to attendees in the days leading up to the event and linked via QR codes on signs located throughout the event.

The Results

The integrated marketing strategy I developed and executed for Masters of Taste across social media, email, web, and print resulted in:

  1. tickets sold out one month before the event

  2. $500,000 raised for homeless services

  3. over 28,000 visits to the 2022 Masters of Taste Map

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