Doubled Engagement Through Custom Audience Innovation

For a global QSR brand, I developed proprietary audience segments focused on Gen Z hip-hop fans, using custom innovative keyword lists and in-house tools to go beyond standard targeting. Paired with tailored creative, the strategy drove a 2x increase in engagement and a 17% lift in brand recall, while showcasing our agency’s unique data capabilities and unlocking new revenue opportunities.

S – Situation

A global QSR brand was looking to reach a niche but influential segment: Gen Z hip-hop enthusiasts. Off-the-shelf audience segments were too broad or too limited in scale, making it difficult to connect with this culturally specific group in a meaningful way.

T – Task

My objective was to develop a proprietary, scalable audience strategy that could engage this niche community authentically, while increasing campaign performance and showcasing the unique value of our agency’s data offering.

A – Action

I led the creation and rollout of a custom audience framework by:

Using proprietary audience-building tools to develop hyper-targeted segments
Creating out-of-the-box keyword lists rooted in hip-hop culture, artists, clubs, albums, venues, slang, and trends
Partnering with the creative team to align messaging and visuals with the audience’s interests and behaviors
Sharing the strategy agency-wide, enabling its adoption across other client accounts

R – Result

The campaign drove a 2x increase in engagement and a 17% lift in brand recall. It became a celebrated internal case study and contributed to new revenue streams by showcasing our proprietary audience capabilities to other clients.

T – Takeaway

When precision and cultural context come together, the results speak for themselves. This initiative not only connected with Gen Z authentically, it elevated our agency’s data-driven value and helped scale innovation across the business.