How Notion won big for its first international brand campaign

The brief

Notion's goal was to increase global brand awareness across several key markets, building familiarity and adoption among business decision-makers in a B2C2B motion. And its plan was to use a media mix that leaned heavily on OOH, along with social media, influencer marketing, podcasts, and TV.

The idea

Owing its success to those dedicated fans who make up the Notion community, Notion decided to use real-life stories as inspiration for the campaign. They wanted to dive into the way people have used Notion to chase their dreams and find their purpose – whether that’s launching a product, planning a wedding, ticking off a bucket list, or all of the above.

With this campaign, Notion unveiled this new theme across its website, ads, social media, traditional and streaming TV, and even experiential pop-ups in New York, San Francisco, London, and Tokyo which drew thousands of attendees who clamored over the brand’s merch and other treats. And of course, they launched billboard dominations across eight cities—in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, London, Dublin, Paris, Tokyo, and Seoul.

To bring the concept ‘For your life’s work’ to life, Notion crafted three unique stories, with characters inspired by real members of their community.

The campaign poses the question: How can you make time and space to do what’s most important to you? And also gave people a challenge: Why don’t the tools you use help you do that?

But Notion wants to support something bigger than just saving time or doing more for the sake of “getting more done.” And that starts with creating awareness of what Notion can do.

To do this, they placed their creatives in locations that targeted startups, digitally-native tech companies, and B2B companies. With executions in the trendy tech hub Shoreditch in London; lively Soho and Williamsburgs neighborhoods in New York; and fast-paced Shibuya area of Tokyo they were able to pique the interest of self-motivated, young professionals (typically aged 18-35+). An audience who’s likely to get excited about getting organized in Notion, who can then carry that enthusiasm into their workplaces, inviting others to use Notion with them.

The results

Notion was on everyone’s lips with digital and print OOH ads in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Dublin, Seoul and Japan. Notion was – and still is – everywhere with subway station dominations, larger-than-life handpainted murals, wild postings, metro takeovers, LED screens, highway bulletins and more.

The campaign reached over 1.5 billion impressions globally and now lays the groundwork for more direct response efforts that will capitalize on Notion’s sustained momentum.

“By placing outdoor media across eight major cities, we achieved international impact, sparking new dialogue about the brand and rapidly accelerating our awareness-building efforts across the globe.” — Kira Klaas, Global Head of Campaigns,

Notion gave the campaign a strong online presence, including a blog post and social media, where they shared the process of creating the murals. This led to over 56,000 reel views and over 6,000 likes.

This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Out of Home 2022. You can see all the winners here. The Drum Awards for Marketing are currently open for entry. Find out how you can enter now.