🏆 PRSA Mercury Awards: Gold, Social Media & Best in Show, Tactical Campaigns (2025)

Building a Mission-Driven Social Media Presence

Role
Co-VP of Social Media · Lead Designer · Good Sam Foods

Timeline
Spring 2025
12 Weeks

Scope
Social Media Strategy · Content Creation + Design

Good Sam Foods has valuable products and a mission worth sharing, but their social media wasn't doing either justice. As Co-VP of Social Media and Lead Designer at The Agency at Quinnipiac, I built a scalable content system that gave a purpose-driven snack brand the digital presence it deserved.

Good Sam Foods is a mission-driven snack brand built around sustainability, ethical sourcing, and regenerative agriculture. The brand works directly with farmers worldwide to make snacks that are good for people and the planet, but their social media wasn't keeping pace with that story.

Through The Agency at Quinnipiac, I led social media strategy and content design across Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. I owned the content framework, built out adaptable design templates, and coordinated execution across social, design, and photo/video teams. The result was a more intentional, scalable presence that won Gold + Best in Show at the 2025 PRSA Mercury Awards.

Overview

Good Sam had a clear brand identity and a compelling origin story, but their social channels were inconsistent, under-posted, and leaning too heavily on static formats. Without a reliable content system, the brand was missing opportunities to connect with a younger, values-driven audience that actually cares about where their food comes from. The new strategy needed to:

Increase engagement with product promotion and mission-driven storytelling
Expand reach and posting consistency across Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
Connect with a younger, more digitally active demographic
Amplify the brand's sustainability and regenerative agriculture story
Build a reusable content system that could scale past the campaign

Objectives

Process

Good Sam's core audience skews toward health-conscious, values-driven consumers in their mid-20s to late-30s, people who read ingredient labels, follow sustainability accounts, and are willing to pay more for a brand they believe in. They're active on Instagram and TikTok, responsive to storytelling-forward content, and more likely to engage with a brand that feels human than one that just sells product.

That audience profile shaped every design decision. Mission content needed to feel authentic, not performative. Product posts needed to be visually clean and scroll-stopping without losing warmth. Short-form video needed to introduce personality. The system was built to meet this audience where they actually are, not just where brands typically show up.

Target Auidence

Before a single post was designed, the team audited Good Sam's existing social presence. We ran a SWOT analysis to surface gaps in format variety, posting frequency, and engagement opportunities.

We also reviewed competitor content and tracked engagement trends to understand what was already resonating in the mission-driven food space. The audit confirmed what we suspected: Good Sam's content was too infrequent, too static, and not fully using the storytelling formats available to them, especially stories, carousels, and short-form video.

Research + Insights

From our research, we structured the entire strategy around three content pillars:

Product Spotlights: showcasing individual products and their benefits
Mission Posts: featuring farmers, sourcing stories, and brand values
Promotions: sales, bundles, and CTAs designed to convert

These three pillars gave every post a purpose. Nothing went live without fitting clearly into the framework. I led the build-out of a shared content planning system that outlined post types, captions, and design needs by platform, making cross-team coordination actually manageable.

Content Strategy + Planning

Design templates were built to flex across formats without losing visual consistency. Every asset, whether a feed post, story, carousel, or motion graphic, was made to pull from the same visual language: Good Sam's brand kit, typography, and color palette. Working closely with the Creative Director, I ensured everything met brand standards.

Collaboration with Photo + Video expanded the content into stop-motion, motion graphic reels, and user-generated content reposts, formats that brought a lot more energy and authenticity to the feed than static graphics alone could deliver.

Content Creation + Execution

The final deliverable wasn't just a collection of posts. It was a flexible, repeatable content system designed to run long after the campaign ended. Every template was built so future teams could swap in new products, updated copy, or seasonal messaging while keeping the visual consistency. Deliverables included:

A scalable social media strategy executed across platfroms
A reusable, template-based content calendar system
A cohesive visual feed with product spotlights, mission content, and promotional formats in addition to motion + video content
Strategic recommendations for additional content integration
A sustainability-focused hashtag strategy to improve discoverability

Captions and calls to action were written to drive comments, saves, and link clicks, not just impressions. The system was built to perform, not just look good.

The Deliverables & System

View the strategy

Award Recognition:
PRSA Mercury Awards 2025
Gold, Social Media and Best in Show, Tactical Campaign

Results:

Delivered a long-term structured, repeatable social media framework
Improved consistency and visual clarity across digital platforms
Strengthened alignment between product storytelling and brand mission
Expanded content formats to include motion, short-form video, and UGC, formats the brand had not previously used

Outcomes + Metrics

Effective social media strategy is equal parts creative direction and systems thinking. Without the framework, the content doesn't scale.
Mission-driven brands perform better when storytelling and product content are treated as two sides of the same strategy, not separate tracks.
Leading a multi-team creative effort means your job is as much about alignment as it is about design. Building shared tools and clear processes is what makes good work actually ship.