From gas stations to Black Friday: Start a campaign in just two weeks

From Gas Station to Black Friday: Start Your Campaign in 2 Weeks

If you’d seen this year’s Black Friday campaign, with its Figma screenshots, playful typography, and “Designer left alone in the office while the rest of the marketing team is away” energy, you’d have guessed we were rushing out.

You’re right about deadlines, but not about ideas.

That “primitive” style was a conscious and creative decision from the beginning.

With only two weeks left between the Trezor Safe 7 launch and Black Friday, the aesthetic had to be quick, honest, and a little chaotic. The pace was realistic, but the direction was intentional. The concept was considered, the tone was carefully shaped, and the team succeeded in building a cohesive, fun, and unmistakable Trezor in record time.

2 weeks, zero time, gas stations between Prague and Plzeň

The moment when the pace of this campaign really struck me was somewhere on the road between Prague and Plzeň on a Friday afternoon. I had to pull into a gas station to get a sorting call.

It was not an ideal environment to launch one of the biggest campaigns of the year. I leaned my phone against the metal service door at the back of the station, trying to maintain a steady connection as the truck passed behind me, and talked to the team about my initial idea. It was a very rough seed that formed out of the collective fatigue we all felt with the release of Trezor Safe 7.

That was it. It was a seed. The idea is that if we are all truly running on 2% battery, campaigns should embrace that feeling rather than hide it.

Monday Sync: Seeds Begin to Grow

When we gathered back in the office on Monday morning, the team had already taken that seed and turned it into something tangible.

The designers started sketching. The initial Figma expedition was already taking shape. Tone is starting to appear. It felt honest, a little chaotic and playful, but still very Trezor. It immediately became clear that the idea was no longer mine. The team made it their own, and that’s when the real work began.

The Lo-Fi Look in Action

There’s something fun about campaigns that seem intentionally rough. It takes people with real skill behind it to make it feel that easy.

To achieve this, our design team – Max, Sofia and Pavel – did a tremendous amount of creative work. What started as a loose spark on Friday afternoon took real direction thanks to them on Monday. They took rawness, humor and exhaustion and created a visual language that was playful without losing credibility, and distracting without being messy. Even when it descended into chaos, it still felt like Trezor.

It was truly impressive to see a piece transformed into a fully formed creative world in such a short period of time. They didn’t just execute the concept. They elevated it.

And they weren’t themselves. The video team added movement and clarity to the look. The social team sharpened the tone and confidently communicated it across multiple channels. Our content team maintained a warm, human, and consistent voice from headlines to newsletters.

It wasn’t one department that shined. Even when our collective energy was low, everyone was pulling in the same direction.

A week of pure creative momentum.

On the Friday before launch, two weeks after our gas station visit, we were laughing about how much had already been accomplished. It didn’t feel like it was rushing in a negative direction. Once the momentum started, I felt productive, focused, and strangely energized.

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Despite being completely exhausted by the release of Trezor Safe 7, the team’s creativity was not maintained. It has become sharper. Ideas moved quickly. The decision has become clearer. Everyone instinctively understood the direction and added something that made the campaign more powerful.

This ended up being one of the most productive sprints our content team has ever undertaken, not because of the pressure, but because everyone naturally collaborated around the same idea. It’s unforgettable to see something like that happen, especially in your first major campaign as a content leader.

The 2% battery that supported us

This is not a sales pitch. A look at the people behind the pixels.

What this campaign proves is that creative teams can do amazing things under pressure when they trust each other and rely on the moment rather than fighting. The 2% battery feeling wasn’t an issue that needed to be addressed. That became our guiding concept.

If you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look, we’ll continue to share more details about how to build in Trezor. If you haven’t already, check out our Black Friday campaign to see what deals you can get.

— Billy Campbell Content Team Leader, Trezor

From Gas Station to Black Friday: A Campaign Kicks Off in Two Weeks was originally published on the Trezor Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to these stories.