The FSS Dollar
Milmark Award Winner
Installation: 48 FSS, Lakenheath AFB
Category: FSS Brand Activation Marketing
Year: 2022
Campaign Summary
The FSS Dollar campaign was centered on educating our consumers on what FSS does for our community and the life cycle and the benefit each dollar spent has on supporting our community, including Airmen, spouses, and dependents. Through multi-channel marketing, we laid the foundation for a strong FSS brand and future successful more targeted campaigns.
Relevance to Category (FSS Brand Activation Marketing)
With essentially nothing more than our team and creativity, we were able to create a campaign that has given depth to our FSS. Now, our reach is greater than ever and our marketing efforts hold a weightier meaning and value to our consumers. They now have a better understanding that when they support FSS with their dollar that it ultimately helps to support our community, and might directly benefit them, their spouse, or their dependents. Creating a campaign that can continue to showcase and build support around our FSS – and ultimately, our community – on a tight budget is pretty magical!
Business Challenges & Campaign Objectives
RAF Lakenheath FSS has struggled with consumers having little awareness or a negative view of its facilities and offerings due to a lack of knowledge.
Our goal was to unify all of our FSS initiatives under a recognizable campaign that showcased and educated our community on the ways in which we at Lakenheath collectively benefit through patronizing Force Support Squadron facilities.
The FSS Dollar Campaign was created to bolster our Squadron’s reputation amongst Airmen, their spouses, and dependents by educating them on the ways in which they played a direct role in supporting our base and its community. The Campaign highlights the life cycle of money within the FSS and demonstrates how every dollar spent with us rolls back around to support job opportunities for spouses and dependents, as well as contributes to making FSS programming and events bigger and better.
To gauge the success of our campaign, we looked for an uptick in numbers around social media reach, interaction, and content performance, as well as website traffic.
48 FSS Marketing Team
Jacob Lancaster, Team Lead
Callie Kennington, Marketing Director
Marlee Morales, Visual Information Specialist
Sarah Olszak, Visual Information Specialist
Kelley Wheeler, Visual Information Specialist
Josie Warn, Visual Information Specialist
Jesse Lopez, Visual Information Specialist
Kimberly Porath-Oxley, Commercial Sponsorship Coordinator
Insights & Strategy
When planning the campaign, we wanted to bridge the gap in knowledge for our consumers and separate fact from fiction when it came to perceptions of 48 FSS. Through market research, we determined that a low percentage of individuals actually knew how FSS worked or even understood the full scope of support we offered. We also found that much of our audience chose to support small, spouse-run businesses instead of FSS facilities because they wanted to feel like their money made a difference in their community. During this process, we became aware of an overwhelming number of individuals who simply did not know which facilities were FSS-run or how supporting these facilities did actually in turn support our community. Another insight gained from this stage in the campaign was how past experiences at other bases may have tainted the perception of Force Support Squadrons as a whole for those members who had recently moved to Lakenheath.
Concept/Big Idea
Lack of brand awareness, perceived value, and conspiracy theories about where the money spent with FSS went meant we needed to EDUCATE. The FSS Dollar campaign stems from a simple idea; Let’s just show them what we do a brand!
With a revolving door of members moving in and out of our community it is no surprise there was a lack of understanding. Previously there has not been much continuity between changes in leadership, Directors, or even marketing staff on any sort of branding effort. Through our Educational Dollar campaign, we hoped to build our FSS Knight branding and strong foundations for future campaigns to build upon.
Activation/Tactics
To kick off our campaign, we started with a video showing the impact that any purchase with FSS – big or small – has on our community. The video, which is a nod to the American version of the popular television series “The Office,” used the magic of pop culture to grab the attention of our audience across social media. The goal of the video was to showcase the path an FSS dollar took from the purchase of something at one of our facilities, to a Human Resources hiring event, to their next paycheck. To complement the playful nature of the video, we also put together a blog breaking down and explaining all the ways in which the FSS “dollar” supports our community and diverted all social, digital, and print media traffic to it. Through digital screens, fun social media posts, articles in our monthly magazine, “At Ease,” and other print media around the base, we finally were able to deliver some much-needed information on why FSS exists at all and why we are of value to the community. Through revised branding initiatives at FSS facilities, we began guiding our consumers to recognize FSS in its entirety as well as continued to provide resources further explaining the depth of FSS.
Results
For this campaign, our goal was to increase the reputation of the 48 FSS by showcasing the value and impact we offer and have on the community. For this, we gauged our results based on social media reach, website traffic, and surveys at the beginning and throughout the campaign. So far, we have exceeded our targets on all accounts. Over the two-month period since its inception, we’ve seen an increase in Facebook reach from an average of only 12.5k a month to a reach of 19.2k. Our followers have also increased by 500 in the two-month period since the campaign began, in spite of the normal drop of followers we generally experience this time of year due to PCS season. Our website saw a 74% increase in traffic over the last two months, with a large portion of that directly coming from blog hits on our FSS Dollar Campaign entry, as well as social media grabs directing consumers to the website. Our initial surveys showed an NPS score of -15%, and two months in we are experiencing and up-tick of 13% NPS based on the same survey.
Brand Building
To build our brand and accelerate its growth in the marketplace we focused on bringing an educational campaign to the community to address areas that were lacking in bridging the community to the purpose of FSS. Through this campaign, we highlighted that you could in fact support spouses, get more value returned from your money, and further play a role in developing our Lakenheath community just by utilizing FSS services. By highlighting these components with an integrated marketing plan we re-established the concept of FSS across our local area and developed foundations for faster brand growth.
48 FSS Marketing Team
Jacob Lancaster, Team Lead
Callie Kennington, Marketing Director
Marlee Moralesa, Visual Information Specialist
Sarah Olszak, Visual Information Specialist
Kelley Wheeler, Visual Information Specialist
Josie Warn, Visual Information Specialist
Jesse Lopez, Visual Information Specialist
Kimberly Porath-Oxley, Commercial Sponsorship Coordinator
All 2022 MilMark Award Winners
Categories without winners did not have entries meeting the minimum score requirement. See the 2022 MilMark Awards Program Guide for more information about scoring and judging criteria.
