Hootsuite's award-winning rebrand campaign. I wrote everything from the tagline, to the creative strategy, scripts, brand guidelines and social ads.
There are currently 200 million businesses using social media globally, but only 4% use a social media management solution. For context, 53% of global SMBs have email marketing software—so there's a massive gap waiting to be filled. Per LinkedIn's B2B Institute, 94% of decision-makers purchase software brands they know and recognize.
So boom: we just needed a brand-defining idea. Something energetic, social and colourful that would make Hootsuite the most recognizable name in social media marketing. This idea needed to make you feel something, with a distinct voice and visual identity to back it up. References we were given included Old Spice's Smell Like a Man, Barbie's You Can Be Anything, and Guinness' Made of More.
Social is the wild part of the internet. Hootsuite's tools map out social campaigns, point out marketing shortcuts and steer brands away from danger online. We're leading marketers through social's next frontier, all the way to success.
So what is Hootsuite? Your guide to the wild.
Video
To launch Your Guide to the Wild, we teamed up with New York-based director Amy Lombard and DMB Represents. Together, we created an arsenal of short ads and photos, plus a 30-second brand film. We cast real social creators as our campaign talent, including Drag Race superstar Blair St. Clair, model and blogger P.S. Kaguya, and performance artist Arewa Basit.
Chopped up scenes from the brand film turned into punchy paid ads on social. Fresh photo assets became fuel for a organic campaign based around our social-first approach to branding—and I wrote our core thought leadership article. We also partnered with silly-logo-creator Emily Zugay for a TikTok launching the new Owly and ran a PR campaign centered around an Adweek feature.
Take a look for yourself, though.
Business and Perception:
◆ A 10% increase in organic brand search in the UK and a 9% increase in the United States
◆ Lifted awareness among 6.7M prospects and purchase consideration among 1.4M prospects, while delivering a lower “cost per lift” than any campaign in Hootsuite’s history.
◆ Your Guide to the Wild assets engaged YouTube audiences at a 64% higher completion rate than the SaaS benchmark.
Campaign and Social:
◆ Our PR campaign generated 10M unique impressions in the first 60 days through 36 pieces of earned media coverage, including an exclusive full-feature article in Adweek.
◆ Our paid media campaign delivered over 94M impressions, reached 19M unique users, generated awareness with over 1.7M prospects, and influenced 528 conversations.
◆ Over the first two weeks, our organic social campaign generated: 30k views, over 3k engagements and a 50% increase in followers on TikTok; 24.2K views and 10.5k engagements on Instagram; 192K impressions, 10.5K engagements and 8.4K clicks on LinkedIn.
◆ The TikTok influencer video created with Emily Zugay became the most viewed and liked post on our TikTok with 1.8M views
Awards:
◆ Best Brand Evolution, Business (Silver), Transform Magazine
◆ Best Use of Copy or Tone of Voice (Silver), Transform Magazine
◆ Nominated for Best Rebrand at the 2023 Shorty Awards
