The pandemic was the biggest pause ever pushed in the wedding industry, disrupting business for vendors and monumental plans for couples. Following COVID-19, there was unimaginable pent-up demand to be back together in person, culminating in a historic year of weddings reaching a record-high of 2.6M. Weddings and celebrations played a more important role in society than ever before, serving as a force for good in the world. Energized by this insight, The Knot Marketing team decided to deepen its understanding of today’s couples and the future generations to come, evaluating their priorities and the challenges they experience to identify a solution.
According to a 2023 study by The Knot, 81% of currently engaged couples are excited to be married—but the same percentage also experience stress during wedding planning. While love is a beautiful thing, planning that momentous celebration can be hard. Weddings are expensive and filled with pressure to achieve perfection and the expectations of others—which can take the joy out of the moment, and make couples forget what weddings are all about. Importantly, Gen Z is shaking things up as they reach marrying age, with a greater interest in celebration over the more traditional aspects of marriage—and they have also distinguished themselves as the most stressed generation in history.
Simultaneously, The Knot Marketing team discovered that vendors help alleviate this anxiety for couples of all ages. In the same report, couples said vendors were among the most supportive and helpful in wedding planning (68%), followed by parents (64%).
Leveraging these takeaways, the team set its sights on a clear campaign mission: bringing both sides of its Vendor Marketplace together to create the ideal outcome.
Driven by this ambition, The Knot Marketing team sought to ease the anxieties of wedding planning by connecting couples with the best wedding professionals to bring their authentic vision to life—while putting vendors at the heart of The Knot brand, helping them grow their business and showcasing the value of the work they do behind the scenes. This all starts with The Knot Vendor Marketplace—not just vendors for hire, but true partners enabling couples to celebrate their love their way.
As a first step, The Knot Marketing team spearheaded a relaunch of The Knot brand in July 2023 to differentiate from a saturated, traditional market and win affinity from Gen Z—the most diverse generation in history, with a propensity for redefining traditions and challenging norms. Throughout the process of creating the new brand identity, The Knot conducted user testing and made changes to align with their valuable feedback. For example, The Knot team learned the old branding appeared generic and the testing group reported the new branding helped the company stand out, evoking a sense of excitement and fun.
Then, The Knot team produced a compelling ad showcasing its new look and feel, supported by the brand’s first-ever integrated marketing campaign. Anchored by the strategic idea “free celebration from expectation,” the ad showcased a diverse range of couples and weddings. The Knot Marketing team flew three vendors who use The Knot Vendor Marketplace out to star in the ad, featured an additional 13 in the credits and highlighted a total of 48 vendors in the campaign creative overall. The goal was clear: drive awareness of The Knot Vendor Marketplace among the next generation of couples, demonstrate the value of vendors and help the small wedding businesses that list on the company’s marketplace grow.
The Knot showed an early version of the ad to a group of engaged and pre-engaged individuals and the majority found it to be fun, modern and inspiring. Respondents especially loved the diverse range of couples featured in the ad, noting that the focus on inclusivity and representing every type of wedding resonated with them. They said it made them want to learn more about the brand and find vendors through The Knot Vendor Marketplace.
Airing as both 30-second and 15-second spots on TV networks, connected TV, and various online video platforms such as YouTube, as well as on audio platforms including Spotify, social media, and Google Search, this marked a substantial strategic shift for The Knot. The approach mirrored its broader business objectives—investing in end-to-end marketing to meet couples where they are and attract new vendors.
The results have been impressive, with a significant surge in brand awareness and a remarkable 20% increase in marketplace sessions year-over-year in the past three months. Additionally, the integrated marketing campaign has driven strong year-over-year growth in signups, resulting in the most new couple registrations since 2019 for the same period. There was a 20% boost in Instagram users who remembered seeing The Knot Vendor Marketplace in the past month, as self-reported in a survey. The campaign also influenced approximately 11% of The Knot's direct digital leads, demonstrating the campaign's effectiveness in driving meaningful engagement.
