How do you launch a successful communications campaign to support your mission? Generation Wild’s Wilderflowers™ campaign provides insight for your next initiative.
Generation Wild is a Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO)-supported communications campaign working to get kids and families outdoors more often. Specifically, we encourage unstructured outdoor play, which supports physical and mental health, develops curiosity and problem-solving skills, helps kids feel connected to the world and each other, builds their love for the environment, and more.
But in a world where the average person sees anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day, how do you build a campaign that stands out?
1. Know your audience.
2. Develop a simple but meaningful message.
3. Meet your audience where they are.
4. Learn from results.
1. Know your audience.
Generation Wild's primary audience is parents and caregivers with young kids. Combining publicly available research and direct feedback from this audience, we learned that they already believe getting their kids outside is important. But between work, school, and many other activities that make up their busy schedules, coming up with new ideas is tough.
That’s why Generation Wild provides simple ideas for outdoor play that families can implement in their backyards, local parks, schoolyards, or other nearby outdoor spaces.
2. Develop a simple but meaningful message.
Though every human is unique, we share many values. In Colorado, we love our great outdoors. And we know that parents and caregivers want their kids to be happy and healthy, and they believe getting outside helps.
Bees are in the cultural spotlight because of their critical role in our ecosystems. But they're threatened by factors like climate change and habitat loss. Scientists and advocates are working hard to save them but there’s something anyone can do to help: plant wildflowers.
In our summer 2024 campaign, the message reflected these ideas: spread seeds to save the bees and rewild Colorado’s kids.
With help from the imagination of Sukle Advertising & Design, we encouraged families to get outside by joining The Bee Team and planting Wilderflowers™ in their backyard or other nearby outdoor spaces (with permission, of course!).
Named for Generation Wild’s friendly mascot Wilder, Wilderflowers™ are a seed mix great for Colorado and its bees. And we got 100,000 packets of them (enough to grow 50 million flowers) to spread across the state.
3. Meet your audience where they are.
Creating the seed packets was just the start. To get them in the hands of families, we partnered with organizations that families already visit, like public libraries, Little Free Libraries, and other youth-serving organizations, asking them to distribute the packets for free to their visitors.
To encourage visiting these partner locations to grab seeds, we implemented our campaign message where we knew parents and caregivers would see it: billboards, video ads on social media, family-friendly streaming services, websites, and e-newsletters. We had an official Bee Team attend community events and appear at movie theaters and drive-ins showing family films. We contacted news outlets to let them know about the campaign and how Coloradans could get involved.
We also partnered with Denver Parks and Recreation to plant ‘save the bees’ using flowers (also called ‘floraffiti’) at Denver’s public parks, along with a QR code sign that helped visitors access more information using their phones.
4. Learn from results.
Our digital, billboard, and public relations tactics provided us with results we could use to assess how the campaign performed. The highlights:
- 40K users visited GenerationWild.com during the campaign, representing 206 Colorado cities and towns. A 71 percent increase from the prior year.
- 2.8M users reached through 47 organic (unpaid) social posts on Facebook and Instagram. An 154 percent increase from the prior year.
- 67M impressions (number of times users saw our ads) achieved through a combination of paid social media ads, video ads on streaming services like Disney+ and YouTube, video ads shown at movie theaters and drive-ins, email newsletters, and billboards. That’s 39 percent more than our goal, which was set at 48M.
- 54 pieces of news coverage showcased the campaign.
In addition, the research firm Corona Insights helped us conduct a statewide brand awareness survey for both GOCO and Generation Wild. We made sure to include specific questions about the Wilderflowers™ campaign.
- 23% of Colorado adults surveyed had seen the seed packets
- 79% of parents surveyed said they were more likely to get outside with their kids because of the Generation Wild campaign.
Lastly, we paid attention to the in-person feedback we received at community events and on social media and email. Overall, the sentiment was very positive.
With these results, it was clear that Coloradans were buzzing with excitement for Wilderflowers™. That helped us decide to take all we learned this summer and apply it to the next. That’s right, Wilderflowers™ are coming back to help save the bees in summer 2025.
Until then, follow us for inspiration for your campaign or outdoor program on Facebook and Instagram, and subscribe to our newsletter. You can also reach us anytime at info@goco.org.