The Art Of Campaign Design

04 Apr The Art Of Campaign Design

In one of my recent conversations with a leading real estate developer who is known for his transformational abilities, I found out he was dissatisfied by many brand communication experts and their brief execution skills in campaign design. He asked me to personally take interest so the outcome may exceed his expectations. 

The initial conversations at our office were filled with anxiety given the responsibility to change a seasoned worldview. Sniffing the turmoil our principal copywriter got involved into the design thinking aspect of campaign design. After a few arguments and some friendly banter over my rigidness for making the layouts as per the client’s choice, he made a few statements that helped the entrepreneur inside me to think about something called the art of campaign design.

Design Thinking Gives Way To Campaign Design

It all starts with design thinking – a completely different way of thinking that is non-linear and doesn’t have a set method. In our school, particularly in maths, we had a defined and laid-out method to solve an example using linear thinking to derive a conclusion. However, design cannot be processed like that!! 

Ok, so what is design thinking?

Design thinking is a human-centric, simple yet non-linear way of thinking. It’s first unlearning then learning.

But the question still lingered, how do you go about from design thinking to the art of campaign design. For us in creative communications, design thinking comes intuitively. But to define a clear method by connecting the dots and making it tangible, there was a challenge.

How To Craft A Campaign From Design Thinking?

Primarily, campaign designs are done for specific purposes, to motivate, not educate. They increase the incentives to take action by making the opportunity cost of inaction higher.

One needs campaign for any of the following purposes-

• Brand Awareness
• Brand Engagement 
• Product Sales (ROI Driven Campaign)

Whatever the purpose may be, effective motivation needs simplicity in message and purpose and that’s where design thinking takes over. For whatever your definition of the term is, you cannot deny its foundational principle- empathy. It is the basic understanding of the needs and desires of the end user that makes design thinking crucial to all the stages, whether it’s product development, branding or campaign design.

This is the genesis of the basic postulates of campaign design that can be summarized as A2C3 Approach (TM), or the 2 As and 3 Cs of campaign design

• Awareness of TG’s desires & needs.
• Alignment with the TG’s desires & needs.
• Clarity of message
• Call to action 
• Continuation for better recall

Irrespective of the nature of the campaign and its execution avenue(outdoor/digital), collectively, these five postulates of the A2C3 ApproachTM should command your campaign design strategy. This is exactly what we, at Rioconn, have imbibed in our culture. Adding these five methods to our creative madness, we’ve been able to successfully execute the brief with a clarity that not only exceeds our clients’ expectations, but excels at it.

By : Hemaang Gandhi

An astute marketing & communication professional, Entrepreneur, StoryTeller and Mentor  with over 18 years of experience, hemaang loves writing & expressing his opinion on various topics. Apart from writing some of his hobbies include reading, running marathons and driving long distances and meeting new people.  

In Coordination with Parantap Bhatt, Principal Copywriter Rioconn Interactive
Parantap is a purveyor of ideas and loves all the ways of articulating them, especially through writing which he has been doing for the past 6 years. When not writing, he is incessantly consuming miniscule bits of stories that are a part of grander plot through electronic media; simply put, binge watching netflix. He is passionate about science, cinema, arts, culture and unlearning the conventional way of things as they are.