Museum of Science launched 'Just Imagine' in August 2018 with Allen & Gerritsen, refreshing its brand identity across TV, digital, and Boston out-of-home media.
ARCHIVEMuseum of Science Bets on Imagination to Redefine Its Brand
Museum of Science launched 'Just Imagine' in August 2018, a brand platform and identity refresh created by Boston agency Allen & Gerritsen, spanning television, digital video, and out-of-home media across the Boston region, repositioning the institution as a destination of endless discovery and imagination rather than a fixed physical venue.
The campaign arrived at a meaningful moment for the institution. According to mos.org, the Museum of Science welcomed approximately 1.4 million visitors in fiscal 2018, a figure that reflects strong physical attendance but also signals the strategic imperative to extend the brand's relevance beyond its walls. 'Just Imagine' was designed to do exactly that — to communicate that what visitors carry home is not merely the memory of an exhibit, but a transformed way of seeing the world. The campaign's creative objective, as documented by a-g.com, was to make the Museum feel big, bold, abstract, dynamic, and inviting, stretching its identity toward STEM education, imaginative thinking, and the cultivation of future problem-solvers.
In the United States, science and natural history museums compete intensely for leisure time and family attention. The 'Just Imagine' platform addressed this directly by moving away from exhibit-specific promotion and toward a durable brand idea capable of anchoring future campaigns. Alongside the film and digital work, Allen & Gerritsen delivered a refreshed logo, updated visual identity, and a new design system, as reported by mediapost.com. Out-of-home executions in the Boston region included location-tailored posters and a high-impact installation known as the 'South Station Spectacular,' giving the campaign a physical presence in the city's highest-traffic transit environment. The campaign was archived as a Film medium execution with one primary media asset.
Allen & Gerritsen identified a clear strategic tension at the heart of the Museum of Science brief. The institution was well-attended but risked being perceived as a place rather than an idea — a building to visit rather than a force that shapes how children and families engage with science throughout their lives. The 'Just Imagine' positioning resolved this tension by extending the Museum's identity into the emotional territory of curiosity and possibility.
In the United States, the museum and cultural attraction sector sits within a fiercely competitive leisure landscape. The California Academy of Sciences recorded approximately 1.3 million visitors in fiscal 2018, according to Atomicmuseum Vegas, placing it in the same tier as the Museum of Science by attendance. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science drew more than 2 million visitors in 2018, according to Apps Dmns, illustrating that peer institutions across the country were also competing aggressively for family leisure time. Against this backdrop, a campaign anchored in a universal human instinct — imagination — offered the Museum of Science a differentiating brand platform that transcended seasonal programming or rotating exhibits.
The strategic rationale was also rooted in audience behaviour. The Museum's own data, reported by mos.org, showed that 132,906 students participated in field trips and more than 100,000 people engaged in community programmes in the same fiscal period, underscoring that the institution's reach extended well beyond casual visitors. 'Just Imagine' spoke to this broader constituency — families, educators, and future scientists — by framing the Museum as a catalyst for imagination rather than a repository of objects. As documented by mediapost.com, the campaign was intended to show that visitors leave with their imagination activated every time they engage with the Museum, regardless of what exhibit is on display.
Director Stebs Schinnerer led the primary film execution for 'Just Imagine,' bringing a visual sensibility calibrated to feel simultaneously expansive and intimate — qualities essential to a campaign tasked with making scientific curiosity feel emotionally resonant to families across the United States.
The production team assembled by Allen & Gerritsen brought significant institutional knowledge to the project. Jim Buckley served as producer and VP Director of Broadcast at the agency, with Tarra Marino as associate producer and Seth Babin as editor, according to a-g.com. Jennifer Putnam held the role of Chief Creative Officer at Allen & Gerritsen, with Pete Valle serving as VP and Group Creative Director. The creative team included Art Director Amy Snelling and Copywriter Lauren Casaceli, both of whom shaped the campaign's language and visual identity, as documented by agencycompile.com. The combination of a strong written concept — the 'Just Imagine' line itself — with a bold visual identity refresh gave the campaign coherence across its multiple media formats.
Pete Valle articulated the creative brief with precision. As quoted in MediaPost on August 21, 2018, he stated: 'Our job was to show how children and parents experience something new at the Museum of Science every single time they visit and leave with their imagination buzzing.' This framing guided both the film's narrative approach and the out-of-home executions, which were tailored to specific Boston locations rather than deployed as generic static placements. The South Station Spectacular represented the campaign's most ambitious spatial expression, turning one of Boston's busiest transit hubs into an encounter with the Museum's newly articulated brand idea. The refreshed logo and design system, delivered alongside the film work, ensured that the 'Just Imagine' positioning had visual consistency across every touchpoint, as reported by mediapost.com.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for the 'Just Imagine' campaign is publicly available in terms of awareness lift, ticket sales movement, or digital engagement metrics attributable to the 2018 launch. Analysis of its structural effectiveness, however, points to a campaign designed for long-term brand equity rather than short-term conversion.
The decision to pair a film-led emotional platform with a full identity refresh — new logo, design system, and location-specific out-of-home — reflects a strategic investment in brand architecture rather than a single-campaign push, a structure that typically yields cumulative returns over multiple years. The South Station Spectacular execution demonstrated an understanding of earned attention: high-footfall, high-dwell-time environments in the Boston region amplify campaign reach without proportional increases in media spend.
The Museum of Science's baseline of approximately 1.4 million annual visitors, as reported by mos.org, provided a meaningful foundation from which any brand-led campaign would seek to deepen affinity and broaden the institution's perceived relevance. The 'Just Imagine' platform addressed a structural weakness common to cultural institutions — the tendency to communicate programmatically rather than emotionally — by offering a durable idea capable of sustaining future creative work. Allen & Gerritsen's documented history of integrated campaigns for the Museum, including earlier experiential and exhibit-specific work noted by a-g.com, suggests 'Just Imagine' was conceived as a platform rather than a one-time activation. Clapboard Score: 60/100, reflecting a campaign with sound strategic architecture and credible craft, constrained by limited public documentation of measurable outcomes.
'Just Imagine' is a 2018 brand platform created by Allen & Gerritsen for the Museum of Science in Boston. Launched in August 2018, it repositioned the Museum as a place of endless discovery through film, digital, television, and out-of-home media across the Boston region, accompanied by a refreshed logo and design system.
Allen & Gerritsen, a Boston-based agency, created 'Just Imagine.' The team included Chief Creative Officer Jennifer Putnam, VP/Group Creative Director Pete Valle, Art Director Amy Snelling, Copywriter Lauren Casaceli, Director Stebs Schinnerer, and Producer Jim Buckley, as documented by agencycompile.com and a-g.com.
The campaign ran across television, digital video, and out-of-home media in the Boston region. Out-of-home executions included location-specific posters and the South Station Spectacular installation. A refreshed brand identity and logo were also launched alongside the media campaign, as reported by mediapost.com.
Allen & Gerritsen aimed to extend the Museum of Science beyond its identity as a physical venue. The campaign positioned the institution as a catalyst for imagination and STEM thinking, targeting families and educators across the United States, as documented by a-g.com and mediapost.com.
The Museum of Science 'Just Imagine' campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100. The score reflects sound strategic architecture and credible production craft from Allen & Gerritsen, tempered by the absence of publicly verified performance metrics for the August 2018 United States campaign.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
.jpg&w=256&q=75)
