SoCal VegFest - "SoCal's Biggest Vegan Festival" Digital Marketing Campaign

SoCal VegFest is a large-scale, non-profit vegan festival held annually in Southern California. It attracts a diverse audience of vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians, and those curious about plant-based lifestyles. The primary goal of the 2024 SoCal VegFest marketing campaign was to increase brand awareness and reach, drive ticket sales, and foster a strong online community leading up to the event.

Digital Marketing Strategy & Graphic Design

My Role: 

I was tasked with conceptualizing the festival’s new brand aesthetic for 2024 and implementing and managing a multi-channel digital marketing campaign utilizing Email/SMS Marketing Campaigns, Instagram, Facebook, and Google Ads.

The Design Process: 

The goal was to reinvent and modernize the SoCal VegFest palette and typography. I chose a softer color palette and carefully crafted custom gradients, a departure from their old palette which consisted of bold, bright solid colors and a blocky aesthetic.

The Result:

A cohesive, artfully curated new brand aesthetic that was an instant hit with their social media audience, potential vendors, and marketing e-mail recipients.

Key Marketing Metrics:

    • Increased Social Media Followers: We successfully increased our follower count on Instagram by 30.4%
    • Higher Engagement Rates: Our social media posts experienced a 65% increase in overall engagement including likes, comments, and shares compared to the previous year.
    • Increased Website Traffic: Website traffic to the SoCal VegFest website increased by 48% — Our average monthly website visits increased to 35,333 in 2024 compared to 23,778 monthly visits during the previous year’s campaign
    • Heartfelt Community Response: The campaign sparked genuine connection and community warmth, with an outpouring of positive comments, likes, and reshares across social media.

Challenges, Opportunities & Results

Challenges

  • Limited Budget: As a non-profit that runs on sponsorship and donations, the campaign had a limited marketing budget, necessitating careful allocation of resources for advertising and influencer partnerships.
  • Competing Events: The festival faced competition from other plant-based festivals, as well as high-profile sports events occurring on the same dates that SoCal VegFest was taking place.
  • Scant raw content for marketing graphics: Though some professional photography and videos from previous events were available, the content was outdated and overused. I resorted to utilizing content from previous years’ attendees’ Instagram posts and YouTube videos, complemented with minimal stock photos and videos. 

Opportunities

  • Leveraging Social Media: Utilizing Instagram and Facebook to reach a wide audience and engage with potential attendees through influencer partnerships, ticket giveaways, highlighting celebrity speakers and DJs, emphasizing well-known, popular food vendors, and making food the number one focus of the social media and email marketing campaign.
  • Paid Advertising: Implementing targeted advertising campaigns on social media and Google Ads to drive ticket sales and brand awareness.
  • Community Engagement: Fostering a sense of community by encouraging user-generated content and hosting ticket-giveaway contests. 

Results & Achievements

Key Metrics and Results:

    • Increased Social Media Followers: We successfully increased our follower count on Instagram by 30.4%
    • Higher Engagement Rates: Our social media posts experienced an 80% increase in overall engagement including likes, comments, and shares compared to the previous year.
    • Increased Website Traffic: Website traffic to the SoCal VegFest website increased by 48% — Our average monthly website visits increased to 35,333 in 2024 compared to 23,778. Monthly visits during the previous year’s campaign
    • Heartfelt Community Response: The campaign sparked genuine connection and community warmth, with an outpouring of positive comments, likes, and reshares across social media.

Instagram Reels

InstagramPosts & Paid Ads

Instagram Ad

Graphic Design: Tania Arce

After A/B testing several graphics for this particular ticket sales ad, this was the clear winner as it performed best with the SoCal VegFest top demographic: women aged 25-45. Overall, this was the top-performing paid Instagram ad of the entire campaign, with a reach of 1.2 Million and nearly 25,000 clicks.  

Instagram Post

Graphic Design: Tania Arce

The multi-platinum recording artist Moby was the keynote speaker at SoCal VegFest 2024. While remaining consistent with the brand guidelines, I wanted the speaker graphics to highlight the speaker’s name and portrait, and make the ticket sales URL very prominent as the speakers are a huge draw for attendees of this event. 
View on Instagram.

Instagram Post

Graphic Design: Tania Arce

This two-slide post was created to announce the DJ lineup at SoCal VegFest for Saturday and Sunday. I wanted to create a distinct style for the DJ lineup graphics throughout the campaign while adhering to the SoCal VegFest brand guidelines and color palette. 
View on Instagram.

Instagram Post

Graphic Design: Tania Arce

With this Halloween contest graphic I wanted to convey the spirit of Halloween through playful graphics and classic Halloween colors without losing the brand aesthetic. This post reached nearly 14k views! and was one of the most re-shared posts of the social media campaign.
View on Instagram.

Additional Digital & Printed Marketing Materials for SoCal VegFest 2024

Creative Direction and Graphic Design by Tania Arce.

Digital Sponsorship Package

This was a 12-page digital package that was created to encourage vendor and sponsor signup for SoCal VegFest 2024. 

It included metrics from the previous year’s event, demographic information, a breakdown of various levels of sponsorship including platinum, gold, silver, and bronze, contact and venue information and reviews from previous vendors and attendees. 

Website Graphics

I contributed to the front end aesthetic design of the SoCal VegFest website by providing hero images, backgrounds, typography and branded assets. 

Printed Signs

I designed various print materials including a-frame signs, banners, posters, table tents, menus.