10 back-to-school marketing campaign ideas that will make the difference

Back-to-school is always an important period for everyone, synonymous with new beginnings, changes and challenges in our lives. This moment is also an excellent opportunity for brands to define their upcoming marketing strategy and to start engaging with their audience. Here are 10 back-to-school marketing campaign ideas that can inspire you and help you to achieve your marketing objectives!

If you like one of the campaigns below and would like to launch it for your audience, don’t hesitate to contact us ?

1. Make the most of new releases

Each back-to-school period brings its share of new movies and TV series that we all love to watch! So this is the perfect occasion to share a fun personality test with your audience so that they can find out which character they are from their favourite TV series. As season 5 of “La Casa de Papel” will be released in September, we have created a test based on this world-famous series.

Wondering how fast you can create a personality test? Our new project manager, Camille, created one in 5 minutes, for season 5 of “The bold type” using emojis and GIFs. Try it out now ⬇

2. Make your audience travel

Even if back-to-school is after summer, it’s never too late to offer your audience a moment of escape! For example, create an instant check quiz requiring participants to find the different tourist places shown on the map, and offer the winners a trip to the destination of their choice — perfect for boosting participations!

3. Highlight your products

Be inspired by Decathlon and their personality test “Which sports will you discover this summer?”, offering participants the chance to discover which sport is made for them. An ideal campaign to collect preference data, segment their audience and promote their sporting goods, thanks to call-to-actions redirecting to their e-commerce platform.

4. Give your partners more visibility

September is jam-packed with events: the Brussels International Film Festival, the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, La Merce Festival, Paris Fashion Week, etc. If you’re a media group or working in the entertainment sector, take this opportunity to inform your audience about these events and eventually give your partners more visibility with a calendar overview. Behind each box, you can display a game giving your audience the chance to win tickets or redirect them to the event’s webpage to find out all the info.

5. Provide useful content

Finding new recipe ideas is not easy. So why not do it for your audience! Imagine a photo contest in which participants share their favourite recipe made with one of your products. Ask them to share a picture or a video of the dish and make your community vote for the one they’d most like to taste. This will enable you to promote your products while giving your audience useful content and a nice prize as the cherry on the cake for the most appreciated recipe.

6. Give away attractive prizes

Last year for their back-to-school plan, Dr. Oetker created a runner game where participants had to catch as many pizzas as possible. The prizes? A year of free pizzas and discount vouchers. A fun and engaging game for their audience, ideal for increasing the time they spend on the brand’s channels.

7. Inspire your audience

The sanitary crisis of the last year has normalised working from home for many of us. This means workers will now have a desk at the office and a desk at home. Give your audience some inspiration to get their home desk ready for the new year with a swiper. Ask participants to “swipe” right or left for the products they like, and give them advice on how to decorate their desk. You can then redirect them to your e-commerce platform to buy the items and, just like that, you’ll have increased your conversion rate. You’ll also collect useful insights on your audience for your next communications.

8. Offer discounts in exchange of data

As explained in one of our previous articles, you must offer something valuable to consumers if you want them to share a bit more information with you about themselves. For example, you could offer them discounts and create a form to gather qualitative information. Ask them to provide data that will enable you to personalise your next marketing actions, like their date of birth, where they live, their favourite product from your range, or if they want to subscribe to your newsletter.

9. Improve your brand awareness

If you’re looking for a campaign idea to boost your brand’s visibility, we’ve got just what you’re looking for! Featuring images and sounds, Repeat it! is an excellent game to train the memory of your participants. The more they play, the more they stimulate and improve their ability to memorise and recognise your products.

The concept is simple: participants have to watch the images, remember the sequences and repeat them correctly. Try it now!

10. Celebrate international days

Did you know we celebrate world beard day on September 4th? On this particular day, you can offer your community tips on maintaining a neat beard or even launching a beard and moustache competition, and asking users to vote for the most creative one. On our side, we’ve created a game where participants need to find the only person without a beard. Will you be able to find it?

Do you need more inspiration for your back-to-school campaign? Check out last year’s article.

Do you work in the entertainment sector and are you looking for marketing campaign ideas to engage your customers and attract new ones? Get inspired by 10 marketing campaigns to make your brand memorable.