Housing Works - NYCGOOD
A 35-Year NYC Institution, Finally Telling Its Whole Story
The SERVICES
Campaign Strategy · Naming · Creative Platform · Brand Development · Guerrilla / Out-of-Home · Digital Advertising · Environmental · Merchandise
The TEAM
Produced in partnership with Hybrid Marketing Co.
Tyler Jacobson – Director of Marketing
Aaron Rosenbluth – Content Director
Adam Mendez – Art Director
SJ Gingras – Graphic Designer
INDUSTRY
Nonprofit / Social Enterprise / Retail / Healthcare
The STORY
Founded in 1990 by ACT UP members during the AIDS crisis, Housing Works spent thirty-five years building something most New Yorkers only ever saw one corner of. Today it runs thrift shops across the five boroughs, a bookstore and cafe in SoHo, the first legal dispensary to open in New York City, Federally Qualified Health Centers, pharmacies, and supportive housing. Every dollar spent at any of those places funds the mission.
The problem was that almost no one knew that. People knew a piece. The thrift shop on their block, or the bookstore, or the dispensary. Very few connected those businesses to the healthcare, the housing, and three-plus decades of advocacy behind all of it. Housing Works issued an RFP for a campaign that would finally tell the whole story. We won the business.
The Challenge
This was not a marketing gap, it was a compounding revenue problem. A thrift customer loyal to the Chelsea store had no reason to know about the East Village dispensary, and neither understood their role in the larger mission. That fragmentation was costing Housing Works reach, revenue, and the kind of loyalty people feel when they know they are part of something bigger than a transaction. The solution had to connect every vertical under one identity without flattening what made each one distinct.
MY CONTRIBUTION
I drove the creative direction from the RFP win through launch, working closely with our Director of Marketing and Content Director on the strategy and storytelling. We orchestrated a team of seven creatives. The work was equal parts strategic and emotional. We were handling the legacy of an organization born out of activism, and the creative had to honor that history while building something that could live on the street, in a store window, and on a t-shirt someone actually wants to wear.
The Work
The platform is NYCGOOD. The name came out of multiple rounds of internal brainstorm, and we brought three finalists to the Housing Works team. NYCGOOD was the overwhelming choice. The wordmark carries the whole argument: NYC pointing forward toward GOOD, with Housing Works as the engine driving it.
We took the pink triangle from the Housing Works logo, a symbol of the organization’s activist roots, and rotated it into a forward-facing arrow. Momentum, progress, a city moving toward good. That let NYCGOOD stand as its own brand while keeping an unmistakable thread back to Housing Works.
The visual direction is DIY, collage, protest-poster energy. Big bold type, vibrant color, drawing on the organization’s history of marches and street-level activism. It was built to feel urgent and alive, not polished and corporate. Each business runs on the platform with its own hook, so every touchpoint reinforces the bigger story:
- Thrift: Good Taste, Good Looks, Good Finds
- Bookstore: Good Stories, Good Books, Good Gifts
- Healthcare: Good Health, Good Meds
- Dispensary: Good Feels, Good Buds, with the line Puff, Puff, Pay It Forward
We activated it on the street first. A wheatpasted poster series across 12 locations on a three-month cycle, sidewalk stencils, programmatic display and retargeting, with in-store windows, signage, and merchandise in development. The long-term goal is for NYCGOOD to become a mark New Yorkers recognize and wear as a statement of their own values.
The Results
The campaign launched in spring 2026, and Housing Works reported unexpected increases in store revenue in that first month, which was partially attributed to the campaign. Exact metrics will come over time, because this is a three-year awareness platform measured in impressions, adoption, and eventually brand recognition. The clearest early proof of satisfaction is the simplest one: Housing Works signed a one-year extension to keep us on the campaign.
Initial contract: 6 months
Extension granted: 1 year
Designed to run: 3 years
