Creating “Big Moods” for One of America’s Largest Events
Considered one of the great American fairs, The Big E is a quintessential New England experience. After helping set record attendance numbers year after year, my team and I looked ahead, creating a campaign that will help reach new generations of fairgoers while emphasizing the event’s big goals.
The Insight & Execution:
Speaking with the folks who run The Big E, my team learned that there were multiple targets to hit: Appeal to younger audiences (hey, Gen Z), highlight their headlining acts at arena concerts, and grow weekday attendance without detracting from popular weekend times.
With that in mind, I brainstormed with my team and got to writing an audience-first campaign inspired by a wee bit of Gen Z slang: “Big Moods.”
While writing, I leaned into the concept of widely relatable feelings to dramatize (instead of show or tell) the emotions the fair can make audiences feel. Moods like, “I can’t Monday today. Let’s skip work and pet sheep,” and “Racing pigs are so me on my way to eat cream puffs” (The Big E’s cream puffs are delish, by the way). Throughout production, I also leaned on my Gen Z teammates to let me know when to pull back the cultural reference to not be too cringe, and ensured that the campaign spoke to all audiences (including families and older attendees) and met the campaign's goals.
The Result:
After presenting stakeholders, there was about 30 seconds of silence. And then the head honcho said, “This launches The Big E decades into the future. Incredible.”
Which is another way of saying that they now have a 2025 campaign that’s on-trend, on-brief, and on track to hype one of the nation’s largest events for a new generation, every day of the week. (There’s also some pretty wild merch, but I can’t claim credit; our designer’s amazing).
Agency: Mascola Group
Campaign: Big Moods
Designer: TJ Redding
Creative Direction & Copy: Yours Truly