Past Campaigns
"Build it beautiful."
“Build it beautiful” was the type of timeless campaign that I’d expected Squarespace to stick with for 10 years. But instead, they've completely started over—multiple times. Only hindsight can tell if you did something right the first time, so I don’t fault them for exploring. What I do find odd, though, is after their rendezvous with a flat tagline like “Build a website", and then "make your own website", they haven’t returned to (what I believe to be) their strongest and timeless tagline. Perhaps they’re exemplifying it through their ads, but the phrase “build it beautiful” sure isn’t reiterated, or at least not consistently. That phrase, to me, is what makes the stories stick.
Recent campaign
Squarespace's current campaign is very biographical. There are bite-sized documentaries on artists, restaurant owners, musicans, and more. Although each study in itself is very genuine, I think they're spreading themselves a bit thin with the whole thing. There are tons of stories, but none of them are really told in an especially compelling way and there's not much of a central theme to unite them.
My Pitch
"If you build it, they will come." And if they don't, use Squarespace analytics.
My idea is to go back to“build it beautiful” and then branch off from it to reach a more specific audience, maintaining “building” as an overarching theme and putting the two taglines under one umbrella. Hint: The tagline is an ode to the movie “Field of Dreams”. If you’ve seen Field of Dreams, you'll notice that the ad has similarities in story structure and tone. “Build” is a reminder to viewers and listeners that the old tagline synonymous with Squarespace is still prevalent.
Audience + Concept
entrepreneurs—especially very new ones or ones who are doubting themselves in their business venture. This campaign is about building trust in your own vision and capabilities and then trusting squarespace to help you promote your business most effectively. Throughout the ads of this campaign, the story of a business parallels with the story of a website being built to promote it.
Rough preview of the commercial's opening
Ad overview
The 2-minute ad would build excitement with parodically extreme optimism and emotion, using famous "building" projects through history as examples of perserverence. The goal of the first ¾ of the ad is to encourage new or struggling entrepreneurs to pursue their ideas and push through whatever obstacles are in their way. This would work as essentially a set-up for a much more analytical call to action which becomes humorous because of how unexpected it is. In return for faith in Squarespace as well as one’s own dream, entrepreneurs are given the tools to gain more viewers—which leads to the call to action:
And if they don't come, there's Squarespace analytics.