Square Voice
For years Square’s story was told through actors and testimonials. In 2016, we developed a new approach using bold colors, stop-motion animation, and playful, easy to understand visual analogies to tell Square’s story in an iconic way. Working closely with copywriter Mike Brenner and director Adam Patch, we developed this new approach. The campaign was a huge success, increasing signups, activations, and interest in new SAAS products. The campaign extended to more than 20 videos, social media executions, and direct mail pieces that ran globally for nearly two years as the SQ stock price rose over 400% over the run of the campaign.
I introduced a modular approach, empowering us to craft reusable video toolkits, thus enabling the creation of hundreds of assets in post-production without the need for additional studio reshoots.
Why Square?
The video that started it all. Visual analogies and bold colors tell the Square story.
Broadcast spots
On the heels of the success of the “Why Square?” campaign we created a six spot campaign using fun visual analogies to explain some of the value propositions of Squares products – fast, easy, clear, and reliable. The spots were designed to be modular, so we could swap different gags and value propositions to easily produce more content. They were localized for four global markets.
The campaign had a significant affect on signups, with 21% of customers watching the ads signing up, 90% activating, and 50% taking their first payment.
Marketing Website
The look of the campaign was extended to the website, applying the same art direction and photography from the video shoot to the site.
Direct Mail
We also applied this art direction to Square’s direct mail campaigns, and it was so successful that it ran for two years.