NSAC 2022 - Meta Quest
What is NSAC?
The National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) is an annual student marketing and design competition held by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). Each year, a new client provides a brief that summarizes a problem. Each team creates a marketing campaign they think would solve that problem. Then the teams compete for the best marketing campaign. In 2022, the client was Meta Quest.
My Role on the Team
My role on the team was Marketing Director. I worked with the Co-Marketing Director to lead the marketing team in forming the marketing plan for this campaign. I met with the Creative Director, the Project Manager, two Art Directors, and Co-Marketing Director weekly to plan and organize each class period effectively. It was also our time to brainstorm what else needed to happen in this project.
The Problem
Meta Quest tasked us with solving a major problem for them. How can we help college students who don't see virtual reality as an essential technology buy the Quest 2 for their college starter pack? To solve this problem, we had to promote VR as a way to connect socially in addition to its entertainment aspects. Not to mention, we had a budget of $10 million to stay within.
Research
We learned everything about Meta Quest and Quest 2 that we could. We looked through their history, brand reputation, current branding, target audience, and more. We performed a SWOT analysis and researched current trends as well. After reading up on plenty of secondary data, we gathered questions to which we had no answer. To find an answer, we shifted our focus to primary research.
For primary research, we sent out a survey worldwide. We got 582 responses from students ages 16 to 24. After sorting the data, we conducted seven one-on-one interviews and a focus group with 15 college students and industry professionals. With this much data, we felt comfortable moving on to concept ideation.
Concept
From our data, we created four personas that accurately represent the target audience. These personas provided a foundation for the campaign. Each persona's user journey familiarizes the persona with VR technology and shows them how the Quest 2 will help ease their life. The campaign we created is called Start Your Quest. It pushes Meta Quest past traditional marketing tactics and connects them with younger generations through immersive “phygital” experiences.
Strategy
The Start Your Quest campaign accomplishes the objectives set in the brief through three main phases: Find, Follow, and Conquer. Through these phases, the target audience will be introduced to the brand and get to experience the fully immersive digital experience Quest 2 has.
-
The Find phase starts the campaign by targeting schools directly and raising brand awareness for Meta Quest. Students will have a chance to interact with Quest 2 and learn more about the product.
-
In the Follow phase, the audience will start to follow Meta Quest and their immersive experiences. Two major events will be held during this phase: QUE (Quest Universal Experience) and Blueprint.
-
In the last phase, Conquer, the audience will feel comfortable with Meta Quest and Quest 2. They’ll seek to purchase the Quest 2 for themselves or others. During the Conquer phase, there will be two brand partnerships to promote the sales of Quest 2 during the holidays.
Design Execution
With the strategy built, we handed the plan over to the creative team to create it visually. Read our team's case study for an in-depth explanation of our “Start Your Quest” campaign. We placed 2nd in the AAF District 5 competition!
