One thing stood out to me. The Free Spirits company had not yet positioned itself within the health and wellness space. 

Although Free Spirits is a non-alcoholic company, the owner, Milan Martin, is very clear that his brand is about more than simply providing an alternative to alcohol. Frequently describing its target audience as “sober-curious," people who value the social experience of happy hour while still being able to meet their wellness goals. 

This led me to look a little closer at the product itself. Free Spirits’ drinks are low in calories and contain B vitamins, which creates a natural connection between the product and values present in the wellness community.

The opportunity became very clear to me: connect The Free Spirits Company to wellness without making the campaign feel like a wellness advertisement. 

Looking Beyond the Brand 

Following my idea, I turned to external research to determine whether wellness was actually a meaningful value for the audience we were targeting. 

The answer was clear. Over the past 5 years, wellness has become increasingly integrated into the everyday lives of consumers, with wearable technology, fitness routines, nutrition, and intentional living all becoming standardized. Between 2019 and 2024, the U.S. wellness economy grew by 7.9% per year, now being valued at around $2.1 trillion.  

The opportunity was there. The challenge was going to be finding a way to enter the conversation authentically. 

The Creative Challenge 

Consumers are increasingly skeptical of advertising. Social feeds are saturated with branded content, while the rise of AI-generated and overly polished creative has made authentic content more valuable. 

So the question became: how can an advertisement feel like something you would naturally see from a friend while communicating a brand message? 

This question became central to developing my creative direction. 

I had also noticed a growing shift towards film photography as an alternative to highly reproduced studio imagery. The imperfections and candid quality feel more personal, and I saw an opportunity to bring that same feeling into the campaign. 

The Big Idea

I started by asking the important question: Why should consumers care? 

That led to the question that ultimately became the guiding principle for the campaign. 

How do you balance health, work, and life without feeling like you’re giving something up?

The campaign positioned Free Spirits as part of the answer. Not as something consumers need to have a balanced life, but as something that could naturally fit into the life they saw themselves in already. 

To make the concept feel personal to different segments of the audience, I used Free Spirits' existing consumer personas as a foundation for developing three specific creative personas. 

My Role: Creative Strategy, Consumer Research, Campaign Concpeting, Copy Development, Social Creative Direction

Team: Lupine Hammack Creative Studio Creative Team + The Free Spirits Company

Timeline: Summer 2026

Deliverables: 3 social carousels, Photography Direction, Campaign Tagline, Social Copy

Drink Like You Mean It

The Free Spirits Company | Summer 2026 Social Campaign

The Brief

The Free Spirits Company had recently switched creative agencies with the goal of increasing their social media engagement and retention. When I joined the creative team for my summer 2026 internship, the brand had already begun to see the result it was hoping for. 

My role was to design a social media campaign for the end of summer 2026 that would strengthen the brand connection with its target audience while also introducing Free Spirits to a new community. 

Starting With the Consumer 

I started with internal research to better understand the current Free Sprits consumer base. Looking at who their consumers were, what they valued, and the aesthetics and market sectors the brand already reached. 

This research pointed to a target consumer base between 35 and 55, primarily upper middle-class people with a strong focus on health, family, and a balanced lifestyle. 

Bringing the Concept to Life

Each persona was given a dedicated carousel designed around a different lifestyle and form of wellness. 

The creative direction centered on showing the life surrounding the product, rather than making the product the intended focus. 

Each carousel followed a consistent structure:

01 - Lifestyle/Action + Copy 

02 - Product still in the same environment

04- Lifestyle/Action + Copy 

05 - Product still in the same environment

06 - Lifestyle/Action + Campaign Tagline 

The original concept included seven slides per carousel, but we ultimately reduced the format to prioritize engagement and maintain a more digestible experience within the social feed. 

The goal was for the content to feel like a lifestyle post first and an advertisement second. 

Finding the Right Voice

The original campaign tagline was "Experience Life with Free Spirits." I planned to cross out the word “life” and replace it with the action in each carousel. 

During my first creative meeting, we explored alternative directions and landed on “Drink Like You Mean It.” 

Free Spirits had previously used the tagline in a successful omnichannel campaign, making it an opportunity to connect a new wellness-focused creative direction back to the brand's existing visual and verbal identity. 

The campaign would cross out “drink” and replace it with the action being shown, creating a visual connection between the tagline and each persona. 

Making the Copy Feel Less Like Advertising 

Copy was one of the more challenging parts of this creative process. 

I wanted the messaging to be short enough to maintain engagement, informative enough to communicate a story, and flexible enough to be adapted across future social content. 

Rather than leading with product benefits or a sales message, we focused on describing the action being shown. 

This allowed the creative to feel more natural within the consumer’s social feed and helped shift their attention from “What is this brand selling to me?” to “This feels like something I could see myself doing.”

The product benefits were moved into the captions. Where consumers could learn more about the wellness benefits of Free Spirits because they already felt aligned with the brand in some way, rather than feeling it was being shoved in their face. 

Creating Escape 

For one of the three carousels, I wanted to push the concept of authenticity even further. 

I created the entire carousel using film photography and centered it around families spending quality time together without their phones.

The idea was to create a sense of escape from an oversaturated digital world, even while the audience was experiencing that story through social media.  

The imperfect, candid quality of film reinforced the idea that the campaign wasn’t selling a perfect lifestyle. It was showing a real one. 

The Takeaway 

The goal of “Drink Like You Mean It” was to show that wellness doesn’t have to mean giving up the experience that makes life enjoyable. 

By connecting The Free Spirits Company to the existing values of its target audience: health, family, balance, and community. The campaign created an opportunity for the brand to enter the wellness conversation in a way that felt natural to its identity. 

No matter what your wellness journey looks like, The Free Spirits Company can be a part of it.