What It Takes to Develop a Brand Campaign: Non-Negotiables for Success

Last week, we launched a new brand campaign for Dayforce—Do the Work You’re Meant to Do. Reflecting on what this collaborative effort took to bring to life, I wanted to capture some key elements for success while it’s still fresh in my mind.????

Creating a successful campaign takes more than just clever visuals. It requires strategic clarity, collaboration, and bold thinking. Whether launching a new brand or refreshing an existing one, the process is demanding but rewarding. Below are some non-negotiables we followed to develop a campaign that resonates and delivers results.???

1. Be Clear About Your Brand Promise. Your brand promise is your North Star. What do you stand for? What value do you bring? Every creative decision must align with it to maintain authenticity. At Dayforce, our brand promise is simple: to make work life better. This clarity kept us focused and made it easier to craft a meaningful strategy.
2. Know Exactly Who You’re Trying to Reach. The more precise you are about your audience, the stronger your impact will be. Whether targeting Gen Z or senior decision-makers, specificity guides both the message and creative execution, ensuring your story resonates with the right people.???
3. Think Big—You Can Always Scale Back. Start with big ideas—you can always refine them later, but you can’t expand a small idea into something groundbreaking after the fact. Encouraging bold brainstorming ensures the best concepts emerge.???
4. Align with a Bigger Cultural Truth. Your campaign should tap into a larger theme relevant to your audience. A good creative partner helps uncover these insights and shapes your message to stand out.???Our campaign was born from the insight that daily complexities can prevent us from doing meaningful work. This inspired our theme: “Do the work you are meant to do.” Through this lens, we aim to help people unlock their full potential at work—and show how Dayforce helps organizations simplify at scale to make that possible.???
5. Explore Different Ways to Tell Your Story. Even with a clear message, how you tell it matters. Be open to different concepts and formats—video, podcasts, interactive ads, and more. We partnered with a great agency that helped us explore a variety of story angles—zooming in at times and then widening the aperture until the narrative felt just right. The result? A campaign featuring three distinct vignettes that highlight the customers we serve and the value we deliver.???
6. Let Your Creative Team Push You. Your creative team is there to challenge you and explore what’s possible. This can feel uncomfortable, but that’s where the magic happens. Innovation often comes from stepping outside your comfort zone.???
7. Be Selective About Who Gets a Seat at the Table. While it's important to gather input from key voices, limit how many people are involved in creative development. Too many opinions can water down the idea and weaken the campaign.??For this campaign, we kicked off the creative process by interviewing key stakeholders across the business to ensure alignment on the strategy and lay a strong foundation for the campaign.? But when it came time for creative reviews and approvals, we involved three key business representatives to ensure alignment without compromising the creative vision.???
8. Trust Your Gut, but Know When to Adjust. Bold decisions make campaigns memorable. Trust your instincts, but also recognize when adjustments are needed. The key is knowing when to push boundaries and when to pull back—your gut will guide you.???
9. Be a Good Partner and Stay Accountable. Developing a brand campaign is a collaborative effort, and both you and your creative team have roles to play. Trust the process, but hold each other accountable to the timelines, deliverables, and goals you’ve set. Open communication is essential. Great partnerships aren’t built on simply handing over the reins—they require a shared sense of ownership.???Before we started work on the campaign, we spent time with our agency partners discussing not just the work, but how we would work together. This helped us clearly define how to deliver feedback, establish operating protocols, and, most importantly, build a shared understanding of what it means to be a good partner.?
10. Plan Ahead, Streamline Reviews—and Have Fun. Plan as much as possible upfront to keep reviews efficient and avoid delays. And don’t forget to enjoy the process—when you have fun along the way, it shows in the final product.????

In Conclusion???

A great campaign takes clarity, collaboration, and bold thinking. It’s about staying true to your brand promise, understanding your audience, and working with creative partners who push and inspire you. Trust the process, trust your partners, and, most importantly, trust yourself.???

My sincere hope for anyone working to build and grow a lasting brand is that you are out there doing the work you are meant to do, making bold moves, and creating something truly worth remembering.?