How might I compel Brooks Social followers to interact
with the Levitate 5 Alter Ego content?
with the Levitate 5 Alter Ego content?
PROBLEM
Create a unique and cohesive multi-phase social media campaign that promotes and supports the Levitate 5 Alter Ego campaign for the North America and European market.
SOLUTION
• Leverage black with neon wrapper and lifestyle imagery to ensure cohesive branding across all platforms
• Build out motion assets that work across a variety of social channels that are visually engaging, build hype, and compel 25-35 year-old runners who may be unfamiliar with Brooks to click through and build equity with the energize category
Timeline 4 weeks
Category Digital Design, Animation, Social Campaign
Tools After Effects, Photoshop, Media Encoder, InDesign, Acrobat
______________________________________________________________
PROCESS
Kickoff
Every project begins with a kickoff meeting with everyone involved in the process which, in this case, includes a project manager, copywriters, content strategists, and other designers. While the Levitate 5 campaign will span multiple touchpoints of Brooks Running, this meeting is specifically for the social media channels (I also designed the CRM campaign too). Before these kickoff meetings I like reading over the creative guide and brief familiarizing myself with the campaign so that I’m ready with questions.
Deliverables
For the Levitate 5 Social Media campaign I am tasked with a total of nine deliverables that span three campaign phases (tease, launch, sustain) over three social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook). The goal is to bring the project to life by incorporating motion, using the black and neon wrapper, building hype, boosting confidence, and driving goal-focused 25-35 year-olds to try out the shoe.
Workflow
Routine and organization are the foundations for everything that I do — especially when it comes to my work as a designer. Immediately after the meetings I write down the due dates in my calendars, fill out my kanban board with each deliverable on a sticky note, build out files on my hard-drive and download all necessary assets. This whole process helps me prioritize and easily communicate with my manager about the status of my workload.
Design
Given the large amount of deliverables I set out to design one asset per day. This gives me an opportunity to get some of my initial design ideas down and take a step back to reflect while working on other projects. For the sake of brevity I have am featuring four of the deliverables listed below.
I wanted to create a story that was gender neutral while using subtle bits of motion that conveyed the idea of "energize". After building out my Photoshop artboards which were built at 1080x1920px, I began placing lifestyle images that I felt that worked best with the copy while leaving at least 250px of space at the top and the bottom of each frame to allow space for Instagram's UI elements. I then dropped in the campaign's illustrative elements, placed and styled the copy while continually referencing the guide to make sure I was staying within the guidelines. I placed each element on its own layer and exported in the same fashion. I then took the exported stills into After Effects.
Once in After Effects I began bringing in my individual layers. For the copy I used the opacity property to lead the viewer's eye along and used the wiggle and flicker property for the lightning bolt to convey "energize". I then rendered each frame as an individual 8 second mp4 while maintaining a weight of less than 500k.
Instagram Story Shoe Launch
The goal for the Instagram story for the shoe launch has three goals: introduce the Levitate 5, share why it's the best Energize shoe yet, while connecting the shoe to the Alter Ego campaign. This post needed to utilize lifestyle images while using design elements from the campaign.
Instagram Story Shoe Fit
The goal for the shoe fit story was to provide information to the followers about the differences in the Levitate 5 and the Levitate Stealthfit 5 while pointing out different features of each shoe.
Instagram Story Alter Ego Quiz
The idea behind the Alter Ego Quiz is to build engagement and drive followers to the brooksrunning.com website in the hope that they will try out the new Levitate 5. This Instagram story is to tease the quiz.
Review
Design is never done in a silo. Feedback, collaboration, and reviews are essential foundations to any effective design. The internal review resulted in some minor changes like including animated arrows pointing to the shoe's features and increasing contrast in the type to the background. Once the design is approved it goes on to stakeholder review to the social media team. There were some additional updates made like increasing the speed of the animated text. The design went through about 3-4 reviews before getting it exactly right. All there was left to do was organize and package my files to be uploaded to our server and the downloadable links to be passed off to the team.
______________________________________________________________
SUMMARY
I learn something new every time I take on a new project and the Levitate 5 Organic Social Campaign was no exception. While I had built social media for Brooks before I believe this campaign took my patience, attention to detail, and organization skills to the next level. While my workflow mirrors the other projects I work on the organization and constant flipping between Photoshop, AfterEffects, Media Encoder, InDesign, and Acrobat required additional focus and attention to detail.
