NSAC Tide Campaign
Advertising Strategy | Copywriting
The AAF’s National Student Advertising Competition is an opportunity for students to work on a full scale ad campaign over a 9 month period. 2024’s client was Tide, with their objectives being converting 75% of all laundry loads to cold water.
Programs
Adobe-Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Qualtrics
MRI Simmons
Client
P&G Tide
Know-How
Marketing Strategy Copywriting Branding
Year 2024
Overview
This process spanned two semesters, with a team of about 15 people. This project entailed everything from media buys to shopping cart ads and everything in between to meet the goals provided by the brand. This experience was led by intensely experienced advertising professionals and educators, Oscar Chilabato and Gail McCarthy. This project was the first instance of pushing my boundaries on all fronts and without a doubt is the hardest I worked on anything throughout my education. I loved it, and I am immensely proud of it,
The Ask
The primary goal of this campaign was split in two: convert 3 out of 4 of all loads of laundry to cold water, and build brand love. One goal focused on a behavior change, the other focused on changing attitude, no easy task. The deliverables expected to showcase our ideas were a 12-page campaign plansbook and a 20 minute presentation in front of a panel of judges. Tide wanted us to build brand love by aligning their actions to their brand characteristics, optimism, authenticity, and courage.
The Process
The Full Scope
Looking back on this project it is able to be categorized into three phases: research, execution, and presentation. This meant our first step was a phase of primary and secondary research collection. Using qualtrics we executed a survey resulting in 545 survey responses, 69 concept test results, and 65 one-on-one interviews. Through this research we were able to familiarize ourselves with our target’s thoughts and opinions toward their goals. From this research we segmented our target into three groups based on the temperature they choose for laundry. Aptly named Luke Warms, Hot Messes, and Cool Cats, these were our foundation for decision making. Using a “Think, feel, do” model, we established specific personas within our target market in order to justify our decisions on meeting brand goals
Execution
Once we familiarized ourselves with who we were marketing to, we took a look at the situation at hand and made decisions based on what we found. One of our biggest discoveries was that people cared about what Tide was doing, they just didn’t know about it. There was a sense of too much going on, we focused on separating Tide’s environmental efforts from their sales efforts. This was a target who cares a lot about authenticity, so actions needed to feel genuine and not like a sales pitch. With all that said, we implemented a “nudge” strategy across the board for all our activations. We wanted to make it clear our goal wasn’t to sell Tide, so we titled our campaign with the slogan “Turn the dial, turn to cold”, specifically chosen as the words represent a behavior change. We developed a multi-touchpoint campaign that budgeted a channel strategy, regional out-of home activations, and carefully selected brand partnerships.
Presentation
With so much involvement in the entire process, it was a no-brainer that I would present this campaign. I learned to know this campaign in my bones and my soul. Alongside three other amazing advertising and design students, Ally Buckley, Kyra Northup, and Shannon Tapely, we collectively presented this campaign to the AAF and Procter & Gamble representatives. Post-plansbook submission, we wrote, edited, and learned our 20-minute scripted presentation. My primary goal was to put a focus on tailoring our language to match what Tide wanted to convey.
What I learned
When I say this is the hardest I have ever worked on something, what that means is my interest for this industry morphed into an unwavering passion. This project felt like I was diving into the unknown with my eyes closed constantly, and I figured it out as I went. The beauty of this process was truly in pushing myself beyond my own expectations for the sake of something bigger than me. On the smaller scale, I learned how to effectively survey a market to produce concrete research, how to strategize campaign events and activations effectively, and just how many synonyms there are for the word “authentic”.
What did I work on?
My two main jobs were driving our overall campaign strategy, and leading the copywriting of our book. At the end of all of this, I had a hand in much of our result, as I was responsible for deciding how our collective ideas should be clearly communicated with the correct tone. I spent many late nights alongside our lead plansbook designer, Ally Buckley, and our media wizard, Kyra Northup to create the perfect storm of a campaign. Deciding on pagination, headlines, and content order to keep our narrative flowing the way we intended became one of my stronger suits. In between the big stuff, I wrote multiple concept scripts for testing, assisted in the decision-making of survey questions, and helped develop detailed personas of our target market.