Winning Feud Brand Campaign

quinceyduffie
May 8, 2023
3 min read

Updated: May 10, 2024

// Q1 BRAND CAMPAIGN

// THE COMMUNICATOR AWARDS WINNER

The Winning Feud campaign was, possibly, my most impactful campaign at Spectrum Reach. The purpose of this brand campaign was to serve as a continuation of the previous year's Delivering Connections campaign, in which Spectrum Reach established itself as the #1 advertising partner in the industry.

The Winning Feud campaign took the original Delivering Connections game show theme and created an off-shoot that was largely influenced by the popular show Family Feud. The main channels for the campaign were traditional TV, streaming TV, digital, and social media.

I worked closely with Kernel's senior copywriter to create a well-rounded campaign that would establish our brand voice, messaging, and key capabilities. The senior copywriter crafted the scripts for the various commercials (i.e. 30-second and 15-second ads that targeted different audiences and businesses), while I worked on all the digital and social assets.

I wrote over thirty pages of copy that would be used for Google Responsive ads, Google Search ads, LinkedIn paid ads, Instagram and Meta paid ads, Kargo ads, and digital banners. I also created separate copy that would be used in a segmentation test to see which words led to the most clicks. Once the campaign was up and running, I worked closely with the web development team to write copy for four web pages that specifically focused on connectivity and multiscreen capabilities for both small (SMB) and large (MBP) businesses:

Example of the segmentation test. Note how the copy is the only thing that changes across the four sets.

The biggest challenge for this campaign was that I was provided no direction to get started. No one said "here's what we did last year, so just follow this formula", or "this is what leadership was thinking we could focus on this quarter." I was a wanderer, alone in uncharted territory, with nothing to aid me but a "fresh-out-of-college-so-I-have-to-prove-myself" mindset.

I had to defeat this beastly undertaking my own way. I got to work dissecting the senior copywriter's scripts and pulling out buzzwords like "winner," "right answer," and "celebrate." I knew leadership wouldn't go for an entire campaign based solely on game show metaphors, so I used them sparingly, but these buzzwords got my wheels turning.

I put myself in the shoes of a game show winner who just scored a new car, a small-business owner who was celebrating the sale of their bakery's first muffin, a lawyer whose team just won a huge case, so now they can afford to run that TV commercial they made a few months back (with Spectrum Reach, of course.) I found that, when I mentally embodied individuals from each target audience, I was able to write ad copy that spoke to them and their specific needs. This was important to me because, if the goal of the brand campaign was to preach Spectrum Reach's incredibly precise targeting capabilities and insanely personalized advertising solutions, then I needed to prove to our audience that we had the meat to back up our potatoes.

LinkedIn ads spotted in the wild.

In the end, my twenty-third version of the master document had over 3,000 words, and there was nothing left to do but face the final boss, Senior Vice President of Spectrum Reach, Michael Guth. Myself, the senior copywriter, and our content team manager pitched the final ad copy to leadership. Michael was a tough cookie to crack, but he ultimately told us that "no other campaign has captured Spectrum Reach's voice better than this one." (I'll cheers to that!)

So, let me play the highlight reel:

The Winning Feud campaign outperformed Delivering Connections by 20% in the first six weeks.
Vice President of Kernel by Spectrum Reach, Timm Chiusano, raved "I am super thankful for your fresh approach to our business and the fantastic work you have contributed. Thank you, Quincey!"
The senior copywriter on the campaign, Chi Laughlin, recognized me for 'Excellence,' noting "[This campaign] is a massive lift, but Quincey performed it tirelessly and quickly, collaborating with other members of the creative team, discussing her creative intentions on calls with leadership, and crafting copy that effectively captures our brand. Her work helped us respond to a very robust campaign request in impressive fashion. She should serve as an example to us all."
And, when the time comes around, Kernel by Spectrum Reach plans to submit Winning Feud to the American Advertising Awards to recognize the team's hard work and impressive creative!