Surrey Board Of Trade: Local Digital Campaign Shows Community Resilience & Garners Results
It was 2021 and the world was one year into the Covid-19 pandemic. At the local level, Surrey businesses were feeling the impact of health restrictions and reduced customer traffic. Typical messaging urging people to “buy local” was getting tired and there was a sense that many were starting to “tune out”. Help was needed, something that would resonate with local consumers. The Surrey Board of Trade (SBOT) approached Blue Meta with help in crafting and launching a local community campaign that would encourage people to support local…but without actually saying it. Our team focused on two positive message approaches:
- Show Gratitude – Depict the heartfelt impact that was made in the lives of Surrey business owners by people who shopped local during Covid. The emotional resonance would also inspire the community to keep the momentum going.
- Social Community Impact – By using the current social and economic status as a benchmark, we would provide useful information that would show how Surrey Board Of Trade members’ services and/or products could help alleviate the stress and boredom of Surrey residents.
#ThankYouSurrey was the overarching message that would serve as a touchpoint for the campaign tactics. The underlying messaging was conveyed via a stacked tagline with a supporting descriptor:
Real Stories Real Businesses Real People
A community coming together in trying times.
The team then rolled out a social media campaign, one that “put a face” on the people behind the Surrey business community. This provided a platform for local businesses to share the stress, uncertainty and struggles they had endured over the past year yet still convey their gratitude to the members of the larger community who shopped local and showed their support. Indirectly, this would also demonstrate the positive impact and sense of goodwill that people can generate when they do shop local.
We also profiled a number of SBOT members who had been positively impacted by the community’s efforts to shop local through a high-production hero video, which also doubled as an ad to get people to follow the Surrey Board Of Trade Instagram account to hear more stories. Six local business would have one week of three consecutive posts dedicated to them that incorporated a video post, a family image post and a product/service post. To encourage involvement, an email blast was sent out to all Surrey Board Of Trade members asking for story submissions. A portion of the budget was further used to provide incentive to both SBOT members and the community. Throughout all of this was the sub-messaging that indicated “the fight wasn’t over yet” and that Surrey businesses still needed the continuing support of the community.
OVERALL CAMPAIGN RESULTS
Impressions – 1,593,041
Reach – 397,730
Link Clicks – 2,256
Engagement – 252,541
Post Reactions – 2,209
Post Shares – 147
Video Plays – 1,302,560
The SBOT was so impressed with the results they achieved with the 2021 campaign that they approached Blue Meta one year later, asking for our help to strategize and implement on an updated version of the campaign, aptly titled #SurreyStrong.