Unfolding Campaigns
How experiences, creators and communities are reshaping brand campaigns
I have always believed that people buy people.
For me, that has never meant putting a person in front of a brand as a megaphone. It has always been about connection and trust. We listen to people. We believe people. We connect with stories told by people who feel like they understand us.
But recently, I have started to see that idea evolve.
The brands creating the strongest connection with consumers today are finding new ways to behave more human. They are joining conversations, creating experiences, inviting opinions and allowing their stories to be told from different perspectives.
They are moving beyond the idea of a campaign as a carefully planned set of brand assets. Instead, they are creating campaigns with depth, where moments, conversations and expressions build on each other to create something bigger. I’ve named this ‘The Unfolding Campaign’.
A recent example of this was Marks & Spencer launching its ‘Dress to Thrill’ collection during the Formula 1 weekend at Silverstone.
I didn't discover this campaign through the brand’s launch content. I discovered it the way most people probably did, through a stream of content appearing across social media. It showed up on my feeds from so many directions that it was hard to ignore. Different creators, different outfits, different perspectives. Tagged, shoppable pieces from the same collection, showing up through multiple people and multiple moments.
The campaign became difficult to ignore. And I followed the tags back to the M&S brand account.
M&S is now an Official Partner of Silverstone Circuit. They're not two worlds you would traditionally place together: one high octane, the other British high street. But I think that's what made it interesting.
They’d used the visual language of F1 to create a new context for the collection. The energy, aesthetics and cultural relevance of the sport helped place the brand somewhere it hadn’t been seen before.
The campaign started with a pre-launch clip created at the F1 track, featuring an M&S branded F1 car. This was followed by a launch brand film showing the collection on a pit-lane runway.
But the campaign did not stop there. M&S brought the collection into the real world through a curated experience at Silverstone during the Grand Prix. The F1 paddock became the runway for invited guests. The colours, the atmosphere and the energy of the event created the perfect backdrop for showcasing fashion on real people.
The collection was not just presented by M&S, it was experienced by the people they invited to the event, who in turn shared it with their own audiences.
‘A hero asset creates the world, an experience creates the moment, and creators extend the story into culture.’
Hannah Shore
This is the power of an unfolding campaign. A hero asset creates the world, an experience creates the moment, and creators extend the story into culture. The story continues beyond the brand’s own channels. It moves through creators, communities and experiences. It takes on new expressions as people interact with it and it doesn’t necessarily reach consumers in the order that the brand planned. And that’s the exciting thing about it, it allows for discovery.
And it does more than build desire. It shortens the route to checkout. A consumer goes from doomscrolling to basket without ever feeling sold to, because the selling never looked like selling. It looked like someone they trust, wearing something they liked.
Creators are becoming far more than the 'influencer' distribution model. They are becoming part of the brand story itself.
The best creators do not simply repeat a message. They interpret it. They bring their own perspective, their own audience and their own way of seeing the world. They can take a brand somewhere it had not necessarily planned to go. That requires trust.
For brands, this is uncomfortable territory. The traditional campaign model offers control. A message is developed, approved, produced and launched. Everything has a place. Everything has a purpose.
A campaign that unfolds is much harder to control.
There are more voices. More conversations. More opportunities for people to respond. The comments section becomes part of the experience. Communities start shaping the conversation in real time. But it is also what makes it feel human.
Humans are not perfectly controlled. We respond, adapt, disagree, change our minds and have conversations. Brands that want to connect with people have to understand that behaviour. They need to learn to read the (social) room.
Branded launch experiences that invite creators are becoming increasingly important because they create those opportunities. They become the cultural backdrop that allows hundreds of other stories to happen.
A launch event is no longer just about the people in the room. It is about the people watching from afar, the people sharing it, the people commenting on it and the communities that form around it.
Brands are creating moments that people want to be part of.
I think that’s why this new era of unfolding campaigns matters so much more. Because audiences expect more. They want brands to relate to them, inspire them and make it easier to see how products fit into their lives. They want to see people they trust engaging with brands. They want to understand the story behind the product.
They want connection.
As a creative, I think this is why the future of campaigns feels so exciting. The tools now exist for brands to tell richer, deeper stories. A hero campaign can still be powerful. Great advertising will always matter. But one piece of content cannot carry the entire weight of a brand story anymore.
The strongest campaigns now have depth. They create multiple ways for people to encounter the idea. They live through experiences. They grow through creators. They are shaped by communities.
The brands creating the biggest impact are not the brands with the biggest sponsorships or even the deepest pockets, but the ones that understand how culture now works. Brands that create things people want to engage with are making more impact than the ones who only buy media.
Campaigns no longer exist outside culture. They become part of it the moment people start talking about them.
The conversations happening around brands are now a huge part of the experience. Brands that stay too cautious risk becoming irrelevant, because choosing not to participate doesn't stop the conversation. It simply means someone else shapes it.
The brand is no longer the only narrator. It is the curator of the experience, creating the conditions for stories to happen and for the campaign to unfold.
