At its core, these marketing campaigns require a blend of creativity, strategy, and execution – when we think of examples, brands like Cortiez, McDonald’s, and more recently, the marketing takeover that was the Barbie Movie all spring to mind. These efforts are usually built around visual comedy, relatability, and fun, but what else do these campaigns all have in common? Everyone was talking about them, and still do today as iconic marketing moments.  

In today’s ever-changing digital landscape where we’ve never been more connected, many brands are still struggling to cut through the noise, stay relevant online, and build meaningful connections with their communities – this is why it’s never been more important for brands to focus on mastering the art of conversation to capture attention, build brand love and drive impact. This is ultimately a time when the rule book needs to be rewritten, and brands need to be constantly evolving and tweaking strategies wherever necessary.  

It is also important to note that we are shifting away from a world that measures success purely by likes and follows. Now, we look deeper at engagement and the wider impact it has on culture. Is this campaign sparking organic user-generated content? Did it get shared in the dark social group chats? How many users are commenting on your social posts? Have we seen an uplift in people sharing your brand organically? Essentially, is your brand capable of building and nurturing a community, and can you make people actually care about what you’re doing as a brand? 

When Bumble tasked us to create a social-first Black History Month campaign which celebrated, acknowledged, and represented the uniqueness of Black British women across the UK, we saw this as a fantastic opportunity to create a wider conversation around misconceptions and womanhood. When crafting this campaign, we found that more than half of the Black community in the UK (53%) do not see themselves represented in images of love in mainstream online spaces – this was especially high amongst Black females.  

From here, we created an impactful multi-channel campaign, addressing various stereotypes that Black women face in dating. We also leveraged our extensive network of culture-shaping media publishers and influencers to amplify the campaign messaging even further – producing social-first content bespoke to their channel in order to resonate with our key target audiences.  

Creating an open forum to discuss an important, yet mostly unexplored topic, and creating a wealth of conversation with women sharing their own experiences, others facing their own internal biases, and more people learning something that they’d never realised or even thought about before.  

Here, a marketing campaign was created out of a simple statistic but, more importantly, a deep cultural understanding and need for conversation around this topic. In order to pull this off, we looked deeply at 1) the client brief and 2) what our audience was interested in talking about.  

To achieve this, we sourced a number of creatives from across the globe and enlisted their range of expertise and perspectives to create a bespoke campaign that we knew would resonate.  

For a marketing campaign to create conversation, brands and agencies must not only look at what is already being talked about away from the mainstream media, but what needs to be talked about. Opening up the floor for conversation will only garner further brand awareness and brand loyalty, and in a time of societal change and division, consumers are, more often than not, looking for brands to take a stance and broaden relevant conversations.  

However, not all marketing campaigns that drive conversation need to look at serious societal issues, nor do they have to be divisive. For example, when a megastar like Taylor Swift is about to release an album she drops ‘easter eggs’ – little clues that hint at themes, songs and lyrics – leading her fans to take to the internet or group chat to dissect and discuss. This not only creates conversation, but ramps up anticipation and, ultimately, sales. Fans not only want to listen to her music, but also see if their theories are right.  

Notably, one of Coca-Cola’s biggest marketing wins was the ‘Share A Coke’ campaign. Embracing multi-channel marketing, Coca-Cola used the power of social media by creating a personalised product that was instantly shareable, and inspired consumers to organically promote their products.  

To create a campaign that drives conversation, a brand must ask themselves what they stand for, how their brand can connect people, and what role they want to play in culture. Consider your target audience, conduct research to see what conversations they are already engaged in, and find out what they care about. It is also important to make sure these issues and your brand values align.  

In this current climate, consumers are weary of false promises and bandwagon mentalities. If you are keen to drive conversation through marketing, it must come across as authentic, otherwise you’ll be starting conversations for all the wrong reasons.  

This article originally appeared in the May/June issue of Startups Magazine. Click here to subscribe

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.