The following content was created and published on this website for educational purposes only as part of Spring 2025 coursework at the University of Southern California for the Master of Arts in Public Relations and Advertising Program. The student responsible for this work is in no manner affiliated with the VSCO brand.
INTRODUCING: THE VSCO “BRING BACK 2015” CAMPAIGN
Bringing 2015 Back to Life with VSCO
There was a time when photos weren’t just pictures. They were captured memories, captured emotions – snapshots of the feeling of making a memory.
When we launched our community of storytellers in 2012, we approached the world with this idea: that the beauty seen out in the world should be captured forever. The feeling of being alive – being you, being around the people you love – deserves to be preserved in your pictures.
That’s why we created filters on VSCO. With a simple tap, the photos you took of a memory looked like how you remember them in your heart and in your mind.
That way, when you look back at your photos, you made the sky as blue as you remembered it. You made your cheeks as pink as they felt. You made the photograph glow with the warmth you felt in that moment.
Introducing “2015,” the Newest VSCO Preset
At VSCO, we’ve always believed in the magic of enhancing the beauty that’s already there. And sometimes, a little more vibrance is exactly what the moment calls for.
But, it’s 2025, and the real world can be tough. Maybe we’ve lost that desire to make the world as bright as it can be. We opt out of the filters for a more “real” or “raw” take on reality. But reality can be dull sometimes. With VSCO, it doesn’t have to be.
Introducing our new, free filter: 2015. Designed to bring a nostalgic warmth to your images, “2015” boosts saturation, tilts the tint toward pink, and layers just the right amount of grain and vignette to revive the playful, carefree spirit of the early 2010s. It’ll make you feel like you’re ten years younger, trying VSCO presets for the first time on your iPhone 11. Try it now on the VSCO app or desktop site.
Rewinding to 2015 at Coachella
We’re celebrating the launch at Coachella 2025, where festivalgoers and VSCO users just like you can rediscover the lighthearted chaos that once defined a generation. You’ll find us in the Brand Activations area under billboards that celebrate the best of bygone eras. VSCO invites you to see the world again for not what it is, but what it can be: brighter, louder, and just a little less serious.
Let’s party like it’s 2015. Because life can be dull sometimes. But it doesn’t have to be.
Bring back 2015. Bring back the feeling. Only with VSCO.
DELIVERABLES
Bus Shelter Advertisement
(above)
Instagram Posts (4)
(below)
Billboard Advertisement
(below)
Subject Line: “Party Like It’s 2015 With New VSCO Filter.”
“VSCO’s core mission is centered around empowering creative expression and fostering a vibrant community of artists, photographers, and creators.”
Supplemental Materials – Campaign Justification and Research:
The campaign content shown above is aligned with VSCO’s brand imagery and mission statement because it reflects our core idea of showcasing the vibrancy of life through photograph enhancement.
The visual imagery of this campaign and webpage is consistent with VSCO web content, which alternates between black and white backgrounds and frequently features user-generated and filtered photographs. The VSCO main webpage uses a custom font called “VSCO Gothic.” While this isn’t openly available for use on WordPress, a similar font is “Proxima Nova,” which is used throughout the deliverables in this “2015” campaign.
As far as the impetus for this specific campaign for VSCO, modern social media trends show that the current generation of social media users are turning away from the usage of filters. Social media users in 2025 are most inclined to create and post unedited, unfiltered photos to seem “real” or “more authentic.” For example, the unedited photo “dump” and “the Gen-Z zoom” are visual trends have taken over photo-sharing social media sites.
While there are credible arguments to be made about the unethical nature of heavy photo editing, VSCO was not created to manipulate life. Instead, we were born out of a now-ancient desire to innocently highlight the excitement and color of life and present an exaggerated, saturated, and stylized version of one’s life on social media.
We know that VSCO is an established, well-known brand. We’ve seen the rise and fall of the “VSCO girl” and heavy filtering, and we’ve loved every minute of it. We know that at one point we were the internet’s favorite “anti-social media” platform and were at our peak from 2015-2019. What can we say? We want the glory days back. That’s where the “Bring Back 2015” campaign comes in. It’s driven by the idea that our consumers merely need to be reminded of the importance and fun of using VSCO, not made aware of it.
The campaign you see above is about bringing color and excitement back to life through image enhancing with VSCO. Our idea is that life is dull already, but it doesn’t have to be with VSCO. The campaign will capitalize on the nostalgia-driven perception of the 2010s and its vibrance, which is enhanced by the heavy presence of filters on photographs from the time.
“Bring Back 2015” will be issued in tandem with Coachella 2025, as the festival is perceived by many as “dying” and unable to live up to its storied reputation of excitement and drama from the 2010s. This connection works because there is already a temporal link between the heyday of Coachella and the heyday of VSCO. In other words, people associate Coachella with VSCO and the combination of the two with vibrance, lightheartedness, and freedom, as evidenced by current social media trends discussing how “aesthetic” and nostalgic the era was.
As you see above, to draw users back to the app there will be a brand-new and free-to-use filter on the VSCO app simply titled “2015.” When the filter is applied to a photo, its saturation will increase, its tint will skew pink, and its vibrancy will increase, and a slight vignette and grain will be placed upon the image as well. It will immediately evoke the feeling of 2015.
Coachella’s involvement with the campaign would be by way of erecting billboards on Coachella property, as these are commonplace for artists and brands to make for the festival. There will also be a 2015-themed booth for VSCO in the Brand Activations area at Coachella, with the most popular music from the era blasting as festivalgoers pose for photos with themed props and backdrops, as well as scan QR codes linking to the stylized filter.
We hope you love “2015” as much as we do. We’ll see you in the desert for Coachella 2025, and on our app every day until then. “2015,” the brand new filter from VSCO is available now.
Other: (Below) VSCO Blog Post in Visual Form, No Hyperlinks
