A paid media approach built on cultural and performance insights, turned into creative direction that moves fast without losing craft.
Reframing paid media around customer insights, storytelling, and creative strategies built to perform.
Role
Creative Direction: paid media strategy and creative direction
Team
- Media
- Brand
- Production
- Localization partners
Deliverables
- Creative direction
- Art direction
- Campaign direction
- Cultural insights
- Team leadership
- Performance-creative collaboration
01
The Context
Paid media was treated as an extension of the banners.
The work was never built for paid.
Paid media had largely been treated as an extension of web and online-store campaigns, without a distinct creative strategy or audience-first approach.
The audience was broader than the brand work.
Paid needed to reach people beyond the traditional Voilà customer, across different behaviours, geographies and cultural moments.
The format was working against us.
Static, generic assets were competing in feeds built on movement and interruption. The work had to earn the stop before it could earn the click.
02
The Opportunity
Brand consistency vs. creative relevance.
Paid media could be more than a place to promote an offer. It could build the brand, tell a story and give people a reason to stop, right where they actually meet advertising.
The goal wasn’t to abandon the Voilà brand language. It was to know when to stretch it, staying unmistakably Voilà while feeling native to social and digital.
03
The Strategy
Paid media is where strategy meets performance.
The audience became less generic and more intentional: who was seeing the ad, where they were, what moment they were living and why it should matter to them. Across social, display and Pinterest.
Start with the audience.
Move away from generic messaging. Make the creative feel relevant to who is seeing it, where they are and what’s happening around them.
Give people something to look at.
An ad shouldn’t just carry a message. It needs an idea: humour, cultural moments, unusual pairings, unexpected copy.
Design for the scroll.
Motion, sound, pacing and format are part of the idea, not production afterthoughts. A banner and a social video don’t behave the same way.
04
The Approach
Approach · Relevant
Relevant, not generic.
Location, season, culture, sport, weather and everyday behaviour gave the message a reason to feel specific.
Approach · Unexpected
Unexpected, not interchangeable.
Past the floating-product-on-blue formula: humour, tension, unusual pairings and stronger storytelling.
Approach · Motion
Built to move.
Motion and sound became creative tools. From social video to Spotify and Netflix, the format shaped the idea.
05
The Leadership
I helped turn paid media from an executional channel into a creative playground for Voilà. Working closely with copywriters, designers, production and media, I pushed the work beyond the safe brand template while keeping it unmistakably Voilà.
I led ideas from first thought through production and adaptation, giving designers room to contribute and looking for ways the work could live beyond paid, including higher-impact placements like Netflix and Spotify.
- Creative Direction
- A creative strategy for paid, built on audience, context and format.
- Art Direction
- Concepts, visual storytelling and motion that earn the stop.
- Creative Collaboration
- Copy, design, media and CRM brought in earlier phases.
- Production & Extension
- Static, motion, adaptations, and ideas that grew beyond paid.
06
The Campaigns
07
The Playground
Brand Collaboration
Bubly × Mario Movie
Seasonal Campaign
Harvest Season
Scene+ / Retention
Scene+ · Don’t Let Your Points Slip Away
Trend / Social
Trendy Product · Pistachio
Fall Catalogue
Seasonal Shop Catalogue · Fall
Seasonal Social
Vacation Mode Activated
Holiday Social
Delivery Pass · Holiday
Win-Back Campaign
Sad Peach · Win Back
Tennis / Partnership
NBO Motion 2025
Scene+ / Campaign
Scene+ · Make Your Route Scenic
Motion Study
Fish Animation
Seasonal / Social
Farm Boy · Lover Cake
Local / Brand Campaign
Buying Local
Spring Catalogue
Seasonal Shop Catalogue · Spring
Seasonal Social
Grill Season
Seasonal Social
Vacations Are Over
Back-to-School Catalogue
Seasonal Shop Catalogue · Back to School
Seasonal Campaign
Airdropping Fall Flavours
Scene+ / Campaign
Scene+ · Open a World of Rewards
08
The Result
Paid media became an active part of Voilà’s creative ecosystem.
Creative joined the conversation earlier, testing became more intentional, and campaigns adapted to audience, geography, culture and format instead of one-size-fits-all.
The work opened the door to more ambitious placements, from motion-led social to Netflix and Spotify, and gave performance a way back into the creative process.