During the COVID-19 pandemic, many local businesses were put on hold and forced to adapt to a “new normal”. When Stage 1 of Ontario’s reopening plan was announced, the marketing department at Downtown London (made up of me and my supervisor) had to create an engaging and relevant social media campaign to alert consumers that downtown businesses were beginning to reopen and compel them to shop local.
For this campaign, we wanted to spread awareness about the Downtown core reopening after the first stage of pandemic-induced lockdowns. Our role as a BIA is to promote and assist the businesses in the Downtown core and helping to corral their clientele after a difficult period would be the most beneficial move.
First, we need to come up with a consistent look and feel for the campaign. Then, we can generate different types of ads and marketing materials for use throughout the City.
Our efforts would be digital and physical for the best reach, with my supervisor leading the charge on the campaign planning and me working on the actual designs. She came up with the title “Hit Our Bricks… Small Is The New Mall” for the campaign which became the rallying point for all of our materials.
Due to the suddenness of the provincial reopening, I had a 24-hour period to design all of our initial graphics and posters. Working under this tight deadline was very valuable to me as it helped me to focus, prioritize, and communicate with my supervisor effectively to ensure everything was completed correctly and on time. I used the BIA’s multicoloured brand aesthetic to create interlocking bricks that surrounded the main text for an eye-popping visual.
Later on, I was asked to revisit the aesthetic for some partnered ads and banners that would be hung around the Downtown core. These were also to use the campaign messaging but to visually expand on the initial concepts.
Soon after my design work was submitted, the work was displayed on billboards, digital ads, and posters which we distributed and scheduled around the City. I, unfortunately, was not responsible for reporting on the analytics of this campaign so I do not have specific statistics on our efforts. However, there was a lot of visibility on our campaign as I had several members of my family and friends who would report sightings of the campaign around the City. We also did not have access to sales numbers from the businesses themselves which would have been helpful to demonstrate the potential influx of customers from our campaign. My main takeaway from this was to always push for analytics for my work to help demonstrate successful strategies or to use as a learning tool if my desired result was not achieved.
