Intern Project 2025 Creative Pitch

Buddle Holiday Campaign System

Overview

During my Fall 2025 internship, I worked within a 15-person cross-functional intern team to develop two holiday campaigns for Buddle: Buddle of Joy and Cozy by Nature.

The goal was to create fully executable Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns that could drive seasonal sales while expanding Buddle's Shopify Collective through strategic brand partnerships. We approached it as both a brand positioning exercise and a conversion system — balancing emotional resonance with real business goals.

My role centered on creative direction, email design, web banners, and AI-assisted concept development, translating research insights into polished customer-facing experiences.

The Challenge

Buddle needed a holiday campaign strategy that could do more than push discounts. The campaigns had to increase Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, position Buddle as a premium clean baby skincare gifting option, build emotional relevance with first-time moms and gift shoppers, expand Shopify Collective through aligned brand partnerships, and remain realistic and executable within existing production resources. That meant creating something that felt warm, trustworthy, and editorially elevated — while still functioning as a high-conversion sales funnel.

Research & Strategy

We started with a competitive landscape analysis of brands like Tubby Todd, Aveeno Baby, and Pipette, looking for whitespace around botanical ingredients, trust-driven storytelling, and premium holiday gifting. From there we built competitor audits, a perceptual map, audience personas, a seasonal keyword strategy, Shopify Collective brand recommendations, and paid search and social budget allocations.

That research led us to a clear positioning statement: The next-generation skincare brand for the next generation.

From there, we developed two distinct campaign territories — Buddle of Joy, centered on delight, gifting, and first holiday memories, and Cozy by Nature, rooted in softness, botanical calm, and peaceful rituals.

Creative Direction

My contribution started in the visual development phase, where I worked with fellow creatives to define moodboards, typography systems, palette direction, and seasonal design motifs for both campaigns.

The visual language balanced soft natural textures, cozy winter neutrals, botanical accents, premium editorial typography, and product-forward layouts — with the intention of making Buddle feel less like a transactional baby product and more like a thoughtful holiday ritual brand. That foundation carried through every downstream deliverable.

My Role — Design Systems, Email, Web, and AI-Assisted Concepting

Cross-Channel Ecosystem

One of the most valuable parts of this project was designing within a connected campaign ecosystem rather than a set of isolated deliverables. The final rollout spanned email templates, SMS messaging, homepage banners, social content calendars, TikTok and Instagram UGC concepts, influencer ornament kits, 12 Days of Buddle advent stories, paid search concepts, and Shopify Collective partnerships.

Seeing how a strong design system scales across that many touchpoints while keeping a single emotional story intact was one of the biggest takeaways for me.

Outcome

The project wrapped as a fully presentation-ready campaign launch system, complete with creative, media, partnership, and budget recommendations. More than that, it sharpened my ability to move from research to concept, build visual systems from narrative themes, design for both brand emotion and conversion, collaborate inside large cross-functional teams, and prototype quickly using AI-assisted workflows.

This project reflects how I think about design — as world-building with intent, where every touchpoint reinforces story, trust, and action.