Lindsey Irvine, Square’s chief marketing officer, is reintroducing the brand to the world with a new campaign. The effort comes as a result of deep research Irvine began when she took on the role a year ago.
“When I first joined, I spent a lot of time meeting with the team and traveling the world to meet with our sellers,” says Irvine. “Sellers really see Square as a critical part of their livelihood and their ability to run their business but also they told me, we’re a whole lot more than just a payment tool.”
“You’re my point of connection between me and my customer,” customers told Irvine. “If payment works seamlessly, I can ask them about their day. I can ask them about what’s happening in their life. You are the center of the neighborhood.”
The new “See You in the Neighborhood” effort spotlights local businesses in eight key national markets. It includes community connectors Killer Mike (Atlanta), Emma Rogue (NYC), Ggiata Delicatessen (Los Angeles), and Jimmy Butler (San Francisco).
“These are all real people, real sellers in the trenches with some incredibly inspiring stories,” explains Irvine.
The new effort is the company’s largest investment in a brand campaign to date and includes TV, digital, streaming, local radio, video, out-of-home, social and experiential – from Neighbor Day pop ups to walking clubs. It’s both national and local. “It’s going to be something that we do and that we live at the local level to support local business and bring the community together,” says Irvine.
Brand Innovators caught up with Irvine from her office in San Francisco to talk about the new campaign, why the brand is leaning into in-person activations and why she is leaning into an AI-first mentality.
Can you talk about how you chose the business owners to feature in the new campaign?
They are real business owners. They’re people that are living this day in and day out and they can speak authentically. They are neighborhood icons with meaningful reach in their area and in many ways also extending nationally. Yes, they are influencers, but it’s a real life business owner that also happens to be really iconic and really influential in their neighborhood.
They’re excited about really celebrating what the neighborhood means to them. They really talk about why they got started in the community around them. They will be sharing this on their socials and will be part of local activations. We’ll be popping up as an example and having a neighbor day event at Emma Rogue’s Retail Shop in New York City. We’ll be bringing these activations to life in their businesses.
Earlier this year, we did a pop-up with Jimmy Butler. We chose to build out a physical corner store in San Francisco in The Mission, called The Square Corner Store. Think Apple Genius Bar, where you can come in and ask our experts anything. We also really opened it up to sellers and local businesses that could host a pop-up and really take it over. Jimmy Butler was one of them. It was a wild success. In addition to just being an awesome community moment, it drove 5x more revenue for him and his business than anything he had done prior. It’s a nice flywheel effect where this campaign really heroes local businesses and icons, supports them, fuels them and also drives the community around them.
How does leaning into these activations help you connect with your audience?
We’re at a moment post-COVID where people are craving human connection and craving the opportunity to get back together. We’re now in a moment in time when you connect with peers that are interesting to you, there’s real power in saying yes to in-person events that bring people together and create that moment for human connection. We’re in 4 million businesses around the world. We’re in neighborhoods everywhere from the mom-and-pop corner store to an iconic chain like Blue Stone Lane.
Our sellers found that we have the unique ability to gather the neighborhood together and facilitate forums where peers can share learnings from one business owner to the next. Being able to talk to peers is really welcoming. Those two elements – being in a moment in time where human connection matters and bringing back those in-person opportunities, events, activations, pop-ups, Neighbor Days, Walking Clubs, giving people those forums to come together. Then making those forums such where business owners and operators can share stories and learn from each other are probably at the center of what is helping bring this to life.
Can you talk about how this campaign supports your overall business goals?
This is much more than a marketing strategy. This is much more than a go-to-market strategy. This is at the center of our business strategy. We want to make Main Street as strong as Wall Street. When we started 16 years ago with the Little White Reader, the big idea was how do we open up the economy to anyone with a dream. Now we’ve moved from this moment of letting someone do that by taking a payment and starting the business to offering a broad portfolio of products that helps them – everything from hardware to software to banking products and more.
When we went public, the IPO sign was: “The neighborhood just went public.” Square has always been about supporting local businesses and local business owners and really wanting to bring economic opportunity to neighborhood businesses everywhere. That remains the business strategy. We want to drive neighborhood expansion and we want every seller on our platform to have a competitive edge that not only helps them succeed, but thrive and become the neighborhood favorite.The campaign headline, ‘See you in the Neighborhood’ is just an extension of that.
The campaign features NFL TV buys, will we be seeing you at the Super Bowl by any chance?
Wait and see.
Can you talk about how your past experiences have helped shape your perspective here in your current role?
I’ve been fortunate to be in companies that center first and foremost on the customer. That is true here and something I’ve brought is at the center of every decision, at the center of every campaign, at the center of any marketing, go-to-market business strategy, you have to be first and foremost grounded on what your customer cares about. I’ve brought a lot of that customer empathy, and in this case, seller empathy into this role. We’re lucky. We support local businesses. Everyone lives in a neighborhood. We’re going to give employees a certain amount of money to spend at a local business, just to get out there and support them. I’m really excited to just shine a big spotlight on this customer-first, seller-first mentality.
What marketing trends are you focused on as you look forward to 2026?
The things that I am most focused on – that are frankly different than me as a CMO even a few years ago – are how do I bring an AI-first mentality into everything that we do and create as a team? I was just in Australia and hosting a seller panel and people came up and said, “Tell me, you live in San Francisco, you’re part of Square, how should we as a hospitality business be using AI to improve how we operate to streamline the customer experience?” An AI-first mentality – both in what we build for our customers and also how we operate marketing and automate with impact.
The other big thing, in terms of brands and engagement, we live in a world of short attention spans, but also a world where people really tune in to people they trust and follow. We have a tremendous opportunity to lean into the creator influencer landscape. I’m excited to do that with a seller-first mentality, meaning finding real business owners that we can hero and spotlight and invest in and partner with to talk about what is most important and valuable to them.
