Campaign. If you’re in a marketing-adjacent field, it’s probably a word you’ve heard a zillion times, but what does it actually mean in the context of marketing your biz/brand/restaurant? Let’s take a step back and peep what it says on trusty dictionary.com:

The noun is where the money is at for our purposes, specifically that second definition. Only we would never counsel being aggressive with your customers.

Akin to your local member for parliament campaigning for your vote, loosely defined, a social/digital/marketing campaign is a burst of promotional activity centred around a particular message and with a specific objective(s) or audience(s) in mind. Now to break it down further…

Why should my brand run a campaign?

Is your venue launching a new location in a different state? Is a new product due to drop? Are you expanding from retail to wholesale? Is summer a really great time for the business and you want to double down on this? Orrrr, perhaps not enough people know who you are and what you do.

A smart, creative and on-point campaign is likely the answer to the above issues. It allows you to address this need outside of your everyday messages, really hone in on the objective and put it out there in a strong and consolidated way. Recall is the name of the game here too – basically for all us fickle scrollers out there we need to see a message several times before remembering it and even more before we might take an action.

But what exactly makes a good great campaign?

Some key things to think about when planning, conceiving and ideating for a (jazz hands) campaign:

The creative idea should have strong legs – can it walk AND run? I.e. does the idea have a story or visual idea at its core that can be told across multiple channels/formats over multiple days/weeks/months?
The idea relates solidly to the core objective – it does want you want it to do – this should be the north star guiding any creative decisions.
It’s distinct and stands on its own but is still recognisable as coming from the voice of your brand/business.
The creative is simple but effective – it grabs the attention of your target audience.
Is the idea original? It should be, lest you blend in with the rest of the online chatter.
Your timeline phasing is built like a t-rex tail (thick and juicy at the outset and petering out and slimmer at the end).
Make sure you measure your success in hard numbers, which will help you manage client (or your own) expectations before you hit go.
Assign paid budget to help bolster the outcome – there’s no point having a beautiful set of assets if you can’t go the extra mile and put a bit of money in to help ensure the right people see your shiny wares.

In the past, we’ve worked on campaigns big and small at Buffet, including venue and product launches. If you’d like to work collaboratively to come up with a great concept that’s tailored to meet your strategic needs, let’s chat!