Educational funds are closer than you think. We built this social campaign to meet families exactly where they are, using a social first strategy to turn awareness into action.
Client: CalKIDS
Year: 2025-2026

My Role

Creative Director, Art

  • Led integrated creative across multiple campaign phases and touchpoints, ensuring a cohesive brand experience from concept through launch.

  • Partnered closely with strategy to translate audience insights into a compelling creative platform.

  • Directed and collaborated with copywriters to shape the campaign's messaging, voice, and narrative across all deliverables.

  • Designed and evolved a scalable visual system that supported hundreds of assets across digital, social, video, and print.

  • Partnered with the social agency to develop the social campaign, wrote the creative brief, and oversaw the creation of social content to ensure it stayed true to the campaign vision.

  • Presented creative concepts to client and guided work from ideation through final production.

Background

CalKIDS is a state-wide initiative designed to give every child in California a head start on their future through college savings accounts.

The Barrier

The biggest hurdle was a mix of low awareness and the "too good to be true" factor. For many families, navigating state programs feels like a chore or a confusing maze of financial jargon. This creates a psychological barrier where people either don't know the money is waiting for them or they feel overwhelmed by the process of checking their eligibility and claiming the funds.

The Objective

Our goal was to turn passive awareness into confident action. We needed to simplify the messaging and show families that claiming their bright future is an easy first step. By driving traffic to CalKIDS.org, we aimed to generate immediate clicks and website engagement that would lead to sustained program participation and long-term financial impact for California’s youth.

Execution

We knew that traditional government outreach wouldn't cut it for this audience, so we built a social-first execution that met parents and students where they already live. By partnering with relatable influencers and directing them to share the “deetz” we turned a dense enrollment process into a clear, actionable story. We used high-energy, educational content and made it trendy to prove how simple it is to check eligibility and secure a financial future.

  • Total Followers: 10M+ reached (335% over the initial goal)

  • Total Views/Impressions: 10.6M total organic and paid impressions

  • Engagement: 45K total engagements across the campaign

  • Creative Assets: 68 unique assets produced by 8 featured creators

  • Content Output: 52 total posts (162% over the initial content goal)

Results