JFP STUDIOS / EDITORIAL CASE STUDY

Could a 100-Year Legacy Open the Door to New Business?

ESRA entered its centennial year with a century of credibility but limited coordinated digital marketing infrastructure. JFP Studios connected audience acquisition, registration, CRM, payments, check-ins and feedback across a year of campaigns, helping ESRA attract attendees, understand their interests and identify potential business…

Centennial campaign · Events · CRM

Group photograph at ESRA Real Estate Companies' centennial celebration.

ESRA Real Estate Companies · JFP STUDIOS CASE STUDY

01 / THE BUSINESS CONTEXT

The context behind the transformation.

Founded in Harlem in 1925, ESRA Real Estate Companies entered its centennial year with a legacy of property management, brokerage and development.

The anniversary created three connected opportunities:

Honor the history: make a century of work visible to new audiences.
Bring people together: turn celebrations into occasions for clients, partners and community members to connect.
Keep the conversation going: connect registration, audience information and follow-up beyond each event.

176 leadership panel registrations, two property management prospects and an audience-development system built around ESRA’s centennial.

02 / THE CHALLENGE

A century of credibility without connected campaign and audience intelligence.

The underlying business objective shaped what JFP Studios recommended and built.

THE CHALLENGE IN BRIEF

ESRA's centennial audience communications were fragmented.
Registration, CRM and follow-up infrastructure needed to work together.
The celebration needed to create useful commercial relationships beyond event attendance.

ESRA had an established reputation. The question was how to translate it into useful relationships throughout the centennial year.

Fragmented outreach: social media, CRM and event communication needed a shared plan.
No connected event calendar: the anniversary required a campaign, not separate promotions.
Limited audience visibility: the team needed to know who registered, attended and expressed further interest.
More useful materials: leadership needed content to share during professional conversations.

The objective was to make the relationships useful long after each celebration ended.

03 / THE CREATIVE RESPONSE

Turn the centennial into a connected year of relationship development.

JFP Studios connected storytelling, event registration, CRM and follow-up into one centennial campaign. The goal was to create reasons to attend, then preserve the relationships those gatherings surfaced.

WHAT WE DID / THREE DECISIONS

Develop a unifying centennial story anchored in Harlem and the firm's history.
Connect invitations, registration, CRM, event check-in and follow-up.
Turn engagement and feedback into opportunities for additional business conversations.

Start with the business objective, not the event

JFP positioned the centennial as a yearlong opportunity to introduce ESRA to new audiences and build lasting relationships.

One unifying story: From Harlem to the Future connected ESRA’s founding family and Harlem roots to its work in real estate today.
Audience development: The campaign focused on attracting the right people to the panel, block party and gala.
Commercial relevance: The goal was not fundraising for a nonprofit; ESRA is a for-profit real estate company with ongoing business relationships to develop.

Build the infrastructure to connect the audience journey

JFP built the systems behind the campaign so that participation could be captured, measured and followed up.

Capture: CRM organization, audience segments, registration pages and lead forms.
Communicate: Email and SMS campaigns, confirmations, reminders and follow-up workflows.
Transact: Ticketing, sponsorship and journal-ad payment paths using Stripe and Square.
Measure: Guest check-ins, attendee issues, feedback and stated interests.

By March, the team was reviewing live page builds for the central centennial campaign and individual events. This foundation developed across the year, not just in the final weeks before the gala.

Give people reasons to engage throughout the year

The campaign paired a connected audience journey with experiences and stories people could participate in and share.

Leadership panel: From Harlem to the Future at Chase Bank in Harlem.
Neighborhood activation: A summer block party connecting ESRA’s legacy to its community.
Centennial gala: A culminating celebration at the Alhambra Ballroom.
Reusable media: Portraits, interviews, historical recreations, photography, video, sponsorship materials, landing pages and the centennial journal.

Make engagement useful after people leave

JFP designed reporting to answer questions beyond how many emails were opened.

Who came? Registrations and attendance records established participation.
What mattered to them? Feedback and interest capture helped surface relevant topics.
Who might want to reconnect? Follow-up interest, including the proposed Harlem Economic Collective, created a starting point for future conversations.
How could ESRA follow up responsibly? Audience contact information remained an ESRA relationship asset rather than a list to hand to outside parties.

THE BRAND PLATFORM / STRATEGY & IDENTITY

IDENTITY / WORDMARK

COLOR & TYPOGRAPHY / APPLIED BRAND SYSTEM

05 / THE RESULTS

A legacy campaign that created measurable paths to new conversations.

176

Leadership panel registrations

50 attended in person.

02

Property-management prospects

Potential clients identified, not signed contracts.

12

Video testimonials

Testimonials gathered during the panel campaign.

An anniversary that created reasons to reconnect

176 registrations for the leadership panel, with 50 recorded in-person attendees.
Two potential property-management prospects identified among building owners. These were leads, not signed contracts.
12 video testimonials and six gala-waitlist signups from the panel.
Seven expressions of interest in the proposed Harlem Economic Collective were reported during the November gala debrief.

Audience and content activity

The February 1 to November 14, 2025 campaign report documented:

41,310 LinkedIn impressions.
2,010 Instagram interactions and 1,387 LinkedIn interactions.
54 posts and 33 reels published.

What ESRA can use after the centennial

Historical and leadership storytelling, event photography, video and testimonial assets.
Centennial journal, museum installation and branded materials.
Connected registration, communication, audience records, and follow-up workflows.

The business implication

The centennial was more valuable as a relationship system than as a single celebration. The combination of audience records, content and expressed interests gave ESRA a clearer basis for continued outreach. Attendance, engagement and prospects are distinct from closed revenue.

Reported registrations, RSVPs, and potential property-management prospects are not verified event attendance or closed sales.

LET'S BUILD AROUND YOUR NEXT OBJECTIVE