The Luxury Industry’s Classic Marketing Strategy is Getting a Digital Upgrade

The luxury industry is really interesting to watch right now. Luxury goods are in an upswing as demand for premium and super high-end luxury apparel, accessories and experiences increases. Targeting younger consumers is proving to be a tough for luxury brands whose entire ethos of exclusivity revolves around the idea of scarcity.

A few weeks ago, we talked about specific campaigns luxury brands like FarFetch and Mercedes-Benz were running. In this series of posts, I want to take a good, long look at what luxury brands are doing and how they’re using social media (finally) to reposition themselves to cultivate lifelong relationships with Millennial and Gen Z customers.

Here’s the Problem with Scarcity-Driven Luxury Marketing… When Everything’s ALWAYS Available

Okay. Let’s state the obvious here: Pretending to be scarce is hard when people can access you via social ALL THE TIME.

The challenge many luxury brands face when rolling out social media campaigns is maintaining exclusivity – the prestige that enables high-end brands to charge premium prices for premium goods and services.

Social media has given us all unprecedented access to one another. Almost everyone (and almost everything) is accessible around the clock. So, it stands to reason that luxury brands – whose reputations are built on the idea of scarcity and exclusivity – have been slow to adopt social media marketing as a core digital strategy. But that’s changing.

Okay… let’s start with the talking-head stuff. Excuse me while I grab my Mont Blanc pen, my laser pointer, and my oversized Cazals to assume my smarty pants identity…

A-hem…

Seventy-three percent of luxury brands say maintaining exclusivity on social media is a HUGE challenge. Nevertheless, as Millennials and Generation Z age up, it’s becoming more important for legacy luxury brands (think Gucci and Tapestry/Coach) to really invest in cultivating relationships with this demographic lifelong loyal customers. And the ability of luxury brands to grab the attention of younger adults hinges on their ability to effectively leverage social media.

Visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are powerful tools luxe brands can use to boost brand awareness, build a loyal following, and get eyes on new products.

I’ve broken this series up into three different parts.

• In Part 1, I’ll do a quick break-down of the luxury market to identify the trends that are causing high-end brands to expand their marketing repertoire in an effort to court that all-important 18-34 market.

• In Part 2, I want to talk about how luxury brands are addressing two major challenges – accessibility and culture – to join the rest of us (and their target market) on social WHILE STILL remaining exclusive and elite. This one will be all about strategy, so make sure you check this one out. The challenges they face that I want to talk about are…

  • Culture – aligning brand values with buyer values (because buyer values have changed)

  • Accessibility – getting young eyes on legacy brands

• In Part 3, I want to take a look at how well-known luxury brands are redefining luxury to include premium products as we talk about affordability. (It gets a little weird with some brands, so this will be a fun one to look at). We’re going to talk about the elephant in the room – why a lot of luxury brands simply don’t seem all that elite anymore.

Overview of the Luxury Goods Industry

In 2018, the value of the luxury market (which includes luxury goods and experiences) was estimated to be more than $1.35 trillion globally. In recent years, there has been growth across multiple segments, but personal luxury goods such as beauty products, fragrances, apparel, handbags, shoes, and jewelry outpaced the other sectors in the luxury market, growing by six percent, and in so doing exceeding growth across all sectors by a full percentage point.

In our business (influencer marketing), the word “luxury” almost always refers to personal goods, but of course, you know luxury isn’t just made up of handbags. It also includes drinks, luggage, vehicles and other modes of transportation (air and sea), and experiences (I’ll talk more about that later in this article). Sales in each segment have been creeping up.

Luxury Market Leaders

Exclusivity or not, I would bet you’re familiar with the gold-dusted cream of the luxury brand crop. LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton tops the list as the world’s most valuable luxury products group. The company houses a portfolio of high-end luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Moët, Hennessey, Fendi, Marc Jacobs, and TAG Heuer. Not an exhaustive list.

Deloitte’s Global Powers of Luxury Goods 2018 assessed the top 100 luxury brands around the world, each of which generated a minimum of $211 million a year in revenue. LVMH, for example, reported record sales of more than $53 billion in 2018 alone. Other top 10 luxury companies include brands you’ll probably recognize as well:

• The Estee Lauder Companies (brands include M.A.C., Clinique, Aveda, Estee Lauder)

• Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA (Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Montblanc)

• Luxottica Group SpA (Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples, Vogue Eyewear)

• Kering SA (Gucci, Bottenga, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Sergio Rossi)

• L’Oreal Luxe (Lancome, Urban Decay, Helena Rubinstein)

• The Swatch Group Ltd (Omega Longines, Harry Winston)

• Ralph Lauren Corporation (Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren, Club Monaco, Purple Label)

• PVH Corp. (Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger)

• Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited (Chow Tai Fook, CHOW TAI FOOK T MARK, Hearts on Fire)

Three Trends Fueling the Growth of the Luxury Market

There are a couple of interesting things happening in the luxury market that are driving growth. Hang on for another few minutes with this statistical dryness… I’ll take my big glasses off in a few more minutes.

Historically, Americans have been the largest consumers of luxury goods, and that’s still the case. But as markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa develop a more voracious appetite for the luxe life, American shoppers are no longer the only target buyer of prestige products.

The continued growth of the luxury goods market can largely be attributed to booming affluence in Asia and the Middle East. China has the fastest growing population of luxury consumers in the world, and it is the fastest-growing market for luxury fashion.

Another important trend driving growth in the luxury sector is the demand for premium goods. Consultancy Asia describes lower-cost, high-end products like Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein as emergent growth drivers for the luxury market. You probably noticed these brands on the above list of the biggest luxury brands in the world. Brands like Calvin Klein (now an underwear company… even though I SLAYED in CK sheath dresses!!!) make mid-priced premium apparel and accessories, and these are brands that are popular among younger buyers who, unlike previous generations, are okay mixing and matching luxury brands, premium brands, and fast fashion to create stylish looks.

You can find outfits that fall into this category on Instagram under #highlowfashion.

Similar to the mix-and-match shopping habit is what some are calling “premium mediocre products”, referring to accessories like t-shirts, baseball caps, sneakers, socks, and headbands branded with logos and word marks from luxury brands.

You knew we had to go here, but it’s true – Millennials in Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa are driving consistent growth in the luxury market, in part because they aren’t afraid to mix it up.

In China, Millennials account for 30 percent of luxury goods sales. That number is expected to grow to 40 percent by 2025.

The Two Distinct Conversations Around Fixing the Luxury Goods Sector

A few years ago, the conversation around luxury goods was strictly on contingency planning for slipping sales. Luxury buyers were aging up and the primary discourse was on ways to engage Millennials since they weren’t rushing into stores to buy luxury for luxury’s sake like their Gen X and Boomer parents had done.

The unofficial consensus was luxury brands needed a way to start the process of building relationships with young adult buyers (and even very young buyers with whom brands could foster brand awareness that turns into years-long brand loyalty). Young buyers can become lifelong customers if brands could find an in.

A good way to do this is by finding ways to personalize the shopping experience specifically for luxury buyers… That meant upskilling sales associates to be seen as knowledgeable curators who were likable and personable enough to forge meaningful bonds with shoppers. And it meant finding smart ways to incorporate technology into the shopping experience.

Of course, the operative word in any conversation about luxury branding is exclusivity. Luxury brands had to find a way to address the lingering issue of maintaining exclusivity while marketing to a broader audience, and there were really only two ways to do it:

1. Cut back on the availability of luxury goods to remind people that luxury often meant scarce and hard to find… OR

2. Redefine “luxury” as something altogether different.

I have a tangent that directly plays into this…

In college, I studied Music Business. One of the required courses in my senior year (or junior year… it all kind of runs together) was a Marketing course focused specifically on music marketing. At the time, that course was being taught by the man who was the VP of Marketing for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra / Max Fisher Music Center. I think he was the VP… it was a C-level position, for sure.

Well, in the very first class, our instructor told us that “The Max” faced a very critical problem – their core customers (DSO patrons) were aging up and literally dying off.

Like, literally.

Selah.

No judgments because I’m still pretty awesome now, like I was back then… but as an orchestra geek I actually went to quite a few symphony performances in high school and college, and it was true that I was usually one of the youngest people in the audience… by decades, sometimes.

The Max Fisher Music Center was facing challenges that are similar to those of the luxury market, just on a much smaller scale:

1. The core customer was aging up.

2. The organization needed ideas for reaching younger audiences.

3. These audiences had to be music snobs and supporters of the arts in their own right to maintain the exclusivity of the DSO’s brand as an elite arts organization

4. The organization needed to recruit young (and younger) fans to build its current customer base, AND create lifelong supporters.

So, our senior projects revolved around creating events targeting people who gave not a single eff about the symphony, but who were music snobs in other genres like jazz and funk, and artsy in other disciplines like spoken word and sculpting.

These events would enable the organization to create more income streams so its existence wasn’t strictly dependent upon DSO ticket sales for classical programming.

Throughout the semester, every student called the actual booking managers of the artists we wanted in our hypothetical shows. We priced insurance. We created the marketing collateral. We put together pro forma budgets for each show that made financial sense and turned a tidy profit.

(Now that I think about it, that should have been a paid internship).

I thought it would be dope to bring in Ed Motta and Incognito (they were surprisingly easy to reach by phone and email) for a performance at The Max and have one or two local bands open for them.

That was, by far, my favorite school project EVER. I actually did go on to do an internship with the marketing department at the DSO.

Tangent over.

***

Here’s the deal: When faced with the decision to make luxury more elite or change the luxe culture altogether, many brands are choosing the former while a number of brands are doing what the Max Fisher has had to do and make moves into rebranding for a younger audience.

I have a couple of really good examples of how these two strategies are playing out in real life for luxe brands…

Elitism and Scarcity Approach: Coach Focuses on Brand Safety to Return to Luxury Status

It was just five years ago that Coach made the decision to remove its iconic “C” branding from its handbags to minimize the negative impact of the luxury handbag market being seemingly replete with Coach bags.

In 2008, Coach handbags accounted for 35 percent of the market for handbags and accessories. By 2014, that number had dwindled to 23 percent. In response, Coach pulled inventory from more than 250 department stores, did away with discount pricing, and strategically shut down Coach stores all over the globe to make the luxury bags a harder to get. The company’s goal was to reclaim control of the Coach brand and reposition it to once again be seen as a luxury item.

Source: Coach.com

After Coach, Inc. changed its name to Tapestry, Inc. in 2017, the company’s iconic branded handbags made a triumphant return. Tapestry, Inc. moved toward actively wooing Millennial and Gen Z buyers by taking to social media, adding a clothing line, focusing more on Millennial men, and even adding Selena Gomez as a brand ambassador, which later turned into a co-branded Coach x Selena Gomez line of handbags.

If you have come across Balenciaga’s Instagram account recently, you probably wouldn’t immediately equate the brand with luxury gowns, but actually Balencia started out as a dressmaker.

Today, Balenciaga is at the forefront of the luxury streetwear movement…

…. and at the helm of a huge shift in the luxury apparel market.

Bro… those are 3D jackets with hips BUILT IN!! As Chadwick Boseman has so famously said, “It’s great but… I’m dead.”

In 2015, 33 year-old Millennial designer Demna Gvasalia succeeded Alexander Wang as the Creative Director of Balenciaga, bringing with him the uniquely offbeat design style for which he’d become famous as the head designer of Vetements.

Source: Balenciaga’s Winter 19 Show

Since Gvasalia’s arrival, Balenciaga runways have hosted oversized outerwear, ironic tees (tucked into unflattering mom jeans, no less), and street-cast models, all of which breathed “young” life into Balenciaga and gave an already avant-garde luxury brand street credibility.

Source: NextShark.com

Today, Balenciaga is one of the luxury brands that actually sells as much (or more) in premium streetwear products like t-shirts and sneakers as they do in more traditional luxury products.

Truth be told, it was my teenage daughter who first informed me (after I mentioned while researching this post that I think the triple sole sneaker looks comfy) that, “Bro… them Balenciagas is lit, bro, fye…”

(Side note: Fye means she approves, they’re hot. ??? )

(Side SIDE note… there are ALOT of mentions of Balenciagas in popular music. A LOT.)

If It Ain’t Broke… There’s Still Time to Fix It

We already talked (quite a bit) about the spending habits of Millennials and Gen Z. One of the big takeaways from just about every conversation about Millennials and money is probably the fact that Millennials spend on what they value, and they have a different set of values than their parents and grandparents, at least as it relates to how and why they spend their money.

For luxury brands, the way Millennials spend changes the dynamic of the brand-to-consumer conversation. Therein lies the core of the challenge luxury brands face with younger buyers – reaching them where they are, and in their language. So, luxury brands are switching up their strategies. Luxury is getting a face lift.

I came across an interesting article on Hypebeast about the trend of luxury fashion houses changing, and in some cases drastically simplifying their logos.

First, let me just say it’s not unusual for new Creative Directors to take fashion houses in a completely different direction that includes changes to the logo.

In 2012, Hedi Slimane rebranded Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) as Saint Laurent Paris (SLP).

Calvin Klein’s word mark went to all caps in 2017. Burberry followed suit last summer.

By fall, Instagram was abuzz with the announcement that #CelineByHediSlimane (yes, the same Hedi Slimane) had arrived at Céline, and coincident with his arrival, another controversial rebranding which turned Céline into Celine. Slimane also completely wiped the brand’s Instagram account.

Whaaaaaa…?

To scroll through a catalog of luxury logos today, one could easily make the connection that a lot of the trendiest labels now have similar logos – simple sans serif word marks that really don’t distinguish one brand from the next.

But these are also word marks that now work well on social media, shoes, handbags, watches, headbands, backpacks, scarves, t-shirts, and a host of other premium and luxury apparel and accessory items.

Let’s Pause Here

Despite the contrasting strategies of Tapestry, Inc and Balenciaga, the end game is the same – to get Millennials and Gen Zers buying products online and in stores. And every luxury brand is working toward finding on-brand solutions for the same challenge – even if that means rebranding altogether.

In our next installment of the Luxury Series, let’s take a closer look at the strategies luxury brands are using to grab the attention of younger buyers.

Marketing campaigns for sports and outdoor brands have matured a lot over the last 10 years. More than just the pretty landscapes or the aerial shots, the marketing for outdoor brands is turning traditional calls-to-action on their heads and making us actually want to check out the products placed in live action shots…whether or not we love the great outdoors.

In 2019, outdoor brands are uniquely positioned to deliver a creative and visually-amazing collection of marketing campaigns right to our screens So, in this post, we’re analyzing some of the more interesting campaigns we’ve seen from outdoor brands, telling you what worked and how you can use their success as a model for your own campaigns.

Quick & Dirty Overview of the Outdoor Market’s Surprising Growth

The retail category known Sports & Outdoors is booming. Sales of outerwear, shoes, fitness equipment, water sports, hunting and fishing gear, sporting weapons, swimming accessories, winter sports gear, and hiking poles (not an exhaustive list) amount to about $67.75 billion in global annual sales (about one-third of that comes from US consumers), with year-over-year growth of 8.1 percent pushing that number to $92.36 billion by 2023.

Around the world, Statista estimates 675 million will take part in outdoor activities in 2019. In 2016, more than two million people (that’s around 48 percent of the US population) took up a new outdoor activity which required them to purchase new equipment. That’s some serious shopping. And I would suspect it’s no coincidence the growth of outdoorsy types directly coincides with the growth of photo sharing networks like Instagram.

Outdoor activities carry with them a wide range of spending opportunities with everything from clothing to equipment to supplies, and the amount consumers spend depends almost entirely on their chosen activity and the difficulty level of what’s involved.

The much-talked-about decline in retail sales hasn’t touched the outdoor market. Fashion apparel sales are down four percent, while sports apparel sales are up two percent.

Thanks to a mixture of “athleisure” making a fashion come back in a big way, and an increase in people looking to connect with nature and unplug from the digital world, outdoor brands are definitely having a moment. That said, let’s see how they’re capitalizing on it with social.

Outdoor Brands That Are Leveraging Digital Marketing to Boost Brand Awareness

The Instagram Savvy of Outdoor Voices

Core Strategy: Crowdsource

Sportswear retailer Outdoor Voices sells all-weather technical apparel for active lifestyles. Most of us don’t give much thought to the textiles industry… unless you’re in it. But it takes a special kind of magic from a special kind of clothing wizard to come up with the technology to make athletic apparel that rebuffs sweat.

With locations in L.A., SoHo, DC, Boston, Chicago, and other trendy spots in major cities across the U.S., Outdoor Voices has amassed a sizable Instagram following of more than 320k users, many of whom wear being called a “recreationalist” as a badge of honor. It’s something of a movement.

Social media strategies that are working for this outdoor apparel retailer

They speaking the language of their core audience. Outdoor Voices has mastered the art of low-key, friend-to-friend conversation online. None of the company’s 2700+ Instagram posts sound like “branded content”. You could say the same thing of Nike, but Nike’s vibe is anything but low-key. And that’s another nuance of Outdoor Voices successfully speaking the language. While Nike targets those who want apparel for optimal performance (you’re familiar with Nikes popular “Just Do It” motto, right?), Outdoor Voices promotes athletic and athleisure apparel for buyers who are “human, not superhuman”. OV sells apparel that helps people move seamlessly from “gym life to life-life” under the hashtag #DoingThings.

Source: Instagram at @outdoorvoices.

Outdoor Voices leverages user-generated content. Outdoor Voices is successfully parlaying everyday posts into branded content by taking advantage of user-generated content – posts  generated by their audience that the brand hasn’t paid the audience members to create.

What’s cool is the first strategy and the second strategy work in tandem. Since the goal is to target everyday people DOING everyday things, it reduces the “regram criteria” for content posted from their followers to be curated as part of OV’s feed. Followers don’t have to be feeling the burn at the local CrossFit box to be regrammed as UGC. They just have to be DOING SOMETHING.

Source: on Instgram @outdoorvoices

Moosejaw’s Email Marketing

Core Strategy: Make every brand-customer interaction memorable

If ever there was a company with a strong brand voice, Moosejaw (on Instagram @moosejawmadness) would be it. Moosejaw isn’t the only company that sells outdoor clothing and gear, so the company’s marketing strategy is to make each experience customers have with the brand a memorable one. They do that by creating messages and content that is fun, quirky, and a bit irreverent. The company tagline is simple: “The most fun outdoor retailer on the planet”.

So… Moosejaw’s near-legendary email marketing strategy springs from a keen understanding that they are not the only game in town. And the marketing needs to provide consumers with a compelling reason to buy from Moosejaw.

(Source)

Historically, Moosejaw’s award-winning email marketing campaigns have been a series of smart attention-getting programmed messages… some of which have toed the line between being quirky and funny to being offensive.

Moosejaw’s emails are wordy, contain very few pictures, and are loaded with big chunks of text – exactly what they tell you not to do on day one of email marketing school. So, why do their emails work so well?

Email marketing strategies that are working for Moosejaw

Using a consistent (and unrelenting) brand voice. Moosejaw’s brand voice typically drips from every single character of the marketing content. With opening lines like “We’re excited to show you some weird stuff, but not that weird” you know you’re in for a wild ride right from the start.

The company also pays attention to the details that so often get overlooked by marketing teams…  things like making sure your small print is on-brand.

“Our mean lawyer is making us add this info. Blame him, not us.”

Every single word this brand puts out there is carefully thought out and planned.

Experiential marketing and total brand immersion. Moosejaw doesn’t just limit its shenanigans to email marketing, though. The company has been known to treat holding callers to a recording of Winston Churchill. Head into one of their stores, and you might just be surprised with a game of hide and seek by the store staff.

Thanks to its mixture of youthful brand personality and digital marketing prowess, Moosejaw now conducts a large chunk of their sales online, which is pretty consistent with its target market being active Millennial and Gen Z consumers who, by this time, are fully expecting brands to do something cool to win their loyalty and dollars.

Not being “market-y” all the time. It’s not unusual for a Moosejaw campaigns to attract media attention – not because of their intricacies or marketing prowess, but because of their silliness and uniqueness.

One of their catalogs included an augmented reality component that allowed users to see through the clothes of catalog models by downloading Moosejaw’s X-Ray Body Scanner app. Not kidding.

Did it provide extra product detail? Nope. Just showed good-looking models in their underwear. Nothing useful to it at all, simply just there to make people laugh.

Long before being acquired by Walmart, Moosejaw killed at leveraging every opportunity as another chance to create a lasting impression with customers. It’s these types of little details, these tiny bits of fun that Moosejaw mixes into the marketing funnel that enables them to push past competitors. It’s what makes people read their emails, even when they aren’t looking for anything in particular. And, it’s these random reads that not only help keep the brand at the forefront of customers minds but can also encourage them to check out what’s on offer and make an unplanned purchase.

Patagonia’s Anti-Consumerism Print Ads

Core Strategy: Values-centered marketing

Patagonia is one of the most well-known and successful outdoor brands. As of 2018, this powerhouse brand is now worth $1 billion, which is pretty impressive in this tumultuous retail landscape. What’s most surprising about Patagonia’s monetary success is their consistent fight against consumerism and over-spending.

Their brand image is built on a platform of being friendly to the nature that their products are used in. So, a lot of their marketing campaigns have been centered around sustainability. The most well-known of these campaigns has to be the “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad. Sent out into the world on the biggest shopping day of the year – Black Friday, and taking the form of a full page spread in the New York Times, their anti-buying message set the retail world ablaze.

(Source)

The ad detailed exactly how much of an environmental impact each of their jacket’s had to give some serious weight to their anti-consumerist message. Encouraging their customers to only buy their products if they actually need them runs strongly through all their marketing and branding.

Print ad strategies that worked for Patagonia

Aligning your message with your mission. Patagonia’s target customers are people who respect the outdoors as much as they love them, and Patagonia’s products specifically appeal to this demographic. This approach to ethical consumer behavior also falls in line with recent buyer trends. Millennials have long been focused on buying ethically-sourced products, and are more inclined to spend their money on products that come from a sustainable brand. In fact, 66 percent of all consumers are willing to spend more on a product if it comes from a sustainable brand.

Doing the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. In lieu of pushing products that customers will need to replace every few months, Patagonia publishes tips on how to repair products if something happens to them out in the wild. It also runs “Worn Wear” events across the country helping customers to repair clothing. Alternatively, you can take your Patagonia products straight to the company, and Patagonia can repair it for you.

The outdoor mega-brand has built its reputation creating long-lasting high-quality products for the outdoor market, and more than once the company’s used disruptive marketing to spread its message to the masses. Patagonia is dedicated to keeping the environment healthy while running a successful business. This can be seen in their own mission statement: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis”. Lofty goals indeed.

Patagonia not only focuses on being ethically sound but also on storytelling. Company values run deep, but no one would know a thing about them if they didn’t invest in their marketing. Patagonia has successfully married the brand message, ethos, and beliefs into its marketing strategy. Not only did it draw the eye in with its title, but it also gained a lot of media attention for its bold message. So, a double whammy. Making headlines with your headline? Very cool.

Don’t be afraid to try something new, as long as it doesn’t take away from what’s really important to your brand. Take a risk, dare to be different, and see the sales start rolling in. Don’t worry about making it too busy either. Sometimes, the most dramatic and effective ads are the simplest ones.

LL Bean’s Interactive, Event-Based Marketing

Not all of us manage to embrace the outdoors as much as we’d like. Tied to our desks at 9 to 5 jobs, we sit and longingly gaze out our windows, or at the stunning landscapes on our computer desktop backgrounds. LL Bean found a way around this with an interactive marketing campaign it launched last year.

The “Be an Outsider” campaign encouraged New Yorkers to step outside the office and spend some time working in the company’s pop-up co-working space in Madison Square Park. Workers could book their space ahead of time, or simply turn up on the day and be able to work away under the June sun (or rain). Yep, whatever the weather, they were determined to go ahead with the plan.

(Source: Event Marketer)

LL Bean ran their innovative campaign was also run in other cities around the US including Boston and Philadelphia. LL Bean ran a survey to tie in with this campaign, discovering that workers between 22-65-years-old were spending a whopping 95 percent of their time indoors – with half of that time dedicated to working.

86 percent of those they surveyed also said they wished they could spend more time outdoors during the work day, so giving them the chance to do this was an excellent way to market its products. The campaign was a great success. Multiple teams used the space for real, important work – not just an excuse to goof off for a few hours.

How LL Bean made an office cubicle (of all things) on-brand for them

Going for the least likely consumer. LL Bean’s “Be an Outsider” campaign ran for more than a year – quite different from the “here today, gone today” world of marketing. One of the cool things about the pop-up office was that LL Bean filled it with tips on how users could get outside more. There was also a downloadable PDF guidebook.

Unlike most other outdoor brands that focus on the wild, adventure-filled side of the great outdoors, LL Bean shifted to a more everyday outdoor style. While they still sell all the outdoor gear a budding adventurer would need, by zeroing in on the everyday enthusiast (especially one who may not have tons of time), the company can expand its target market to include those of us who love the idea of the outdoors but lack the adrenaline junkie gene that spurs us to explore it.

(@coworkingchron)

(@steveramosmedia)

The company created a branded hashtag #BeAnOutsider, allowing for a curated feed of user-generated content to go along with the campaign. Experiences like these get people talking and organically spreading both your brand name and your marketing.

By expanding their target audience, LL Bean was able to appeal to a wider section of the public than most outdoor brands have so far been able to do. And, thanks to their wide collection of content types in this campaign, they were further able to appeal to a broader audience. We all prefer to consume content in different ways – some of us prefer to watch a short video, some to read through web content, and some through social media hype.

Cashing in on a trend (even one that’s anti-your thing). LL Bean was able to cash in on two popular trends: remotely working from co-working spaces AND improving mental health in the workplace. Essential for younger generations.

We’ve written before about marketing to Gen Z consumers and the Millennial market (we published posts on both Millennial men and Millennial women). By honing in on how being outdoors benefit busy professionals, LL Bean creates an opportunity to widen their market.

Cross-channel messaging. Outdoor brands are often marketing to those of us who like to unplug. While they may be pushing hard on digital platforms, they’re not skimping elsewhere either. Build your marketing message throughout your channels, even if your focus is on digital.

In-store experiences, product launches, and special events are all ways in which you can tie your digital marketing into real, tangible campaigns. And, with many people starting to see the draws of a “digital detox”, pouring yourself into multiple channels can only be a good thing.

Finding new and interesting ways to expand your target audience can help bring in a nice boost in sales as well. Find a way to tie your product into an everyday event that the majority of the public take part in. This way, you’ll have a safe and simple route to a whole new market.

Conclusion

All four of these brands exist in the niche of outdoor products, but they all have very different voices and marketing styles. Despite their differences, they all share one thing in common – awesome marketing. So, what lessons can these three outdoor brands teach you?

One thing you’ll notice throughout all three brands mentioned above is that their brand styling and brand voice carries through everything they do. From product design to social media posts to campaign ideas – keeping your brand flowing smoothly through all this is the perfect way to ensure a successful campaign.

Whatever industry you’re working in, you’ll never be the only one there. So, you need to make sure you stand out from your competition. Brand voice is the easiest way to do this. Every time you “speak” be it in person or online, people should instantly know who is talking to them. This is the magic of strong branding, and it works wonders.

All of these brands worked hard to skirt around the rules of marketing in one way or another. They were disruptive, they were rebellious, and they were successful. Today, we are inundated with ads from every side – TV, social media, emails, banners. Trying to stand out in this huge crowd can be tricky. The best way to do it? Dare to be different.

Many marketing teams worry that by going too far out of the box, they may fall flat on their faces. But, with no risk, there’s no room to grow. Sure, it might not work, but the same could be said for any marketing campaign – different or not. So, it’s better to take the risk for a bigger payoff, than playing it safe once more.

Food Box Subscription Serivces: Industry Overview and Analysis of 4 Leading Companies

It’s the New Year… and this time of the year is about looking forward and finding ways to improve your quality of life. It means preparing to dominate your list of goals just a liiiittle bit more in the year to come. For those with #healthgoals, it means tightening up on diet and exercise… and meal kit subscriptions are a great way to save time when time is money.

For the 40 percent of Americans who will partake in the annual tradition of setting New Year’s Resolutions, food is big on the list. Most people have some variation of healthier living high atop their list of goals, whether that’s eating better, exercising, or finding a more satisfying work-life balance. In fact, #healthgoals took the number two spot as the most popular New Year’s Resolution for 2018, right behind saving money.

There’s some good news on the healthy living front. Convenience food no longer has to mean fatty burgers or microwave meals. Food subscription services are a popular alternative to both the grocery store and the drive-thru. Now anyone, even those of us who are knee-deep into full-on 7 PM to 2 AM hustle-like-you-mean-it lifestyles, can get fresh, healthy, high-quality food delivered direct to our doorsteps, with everything needed to put together amazing meals for the solo diner or a family.

Awesome bonus: Most food subscription boxes come with easy-to-follow recipe cards.

In this post, we’re taking a look at the food subscription box industry (aka meal subscriptions, meal kit delivery, food boxes) – the stats, the figures, the facts. And we’re checking out examples of the smart marketing tactics food subscription services have used to boost awareness and enlist subscribers.

The Online Meal Kit Delivery Industry In a Nutshell

There are dozens of food subscription services on the market and dozens of dozens of box subscription companies that specialize in delivering everything from shave kits to perfume to gaming gear.

FYI, there are three different variations of subscription services – replenishment, access, and curation.

Replenishment services focus on keeping you well-stocked with the important, everyday items like razors like Dollar Shave Club and 1800CONTACTS.

Access services give users access to their services each month like Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

Curation services give users new and exciting items or experiences each month like Birchbox or Loot Crate.

Food boxes generally fall into the curation category, although some may work on a replenishment model as well.

At the end of 2017, the five most-trafficked box subscription services shipped products across multiple verticals, including beauty, food, apparel, and personal hygiene.

Look at how the following charts show the differences between the subscription box retailers that are visited most, versus the subscription box retailers with the most unique visitors.

Source: Statista

Source: Statista

MARKET SIZE

Subscription meal boxes, in particular, are quickly becoming the new fast food… only without the guilt and requisite gym membership. In 2015, meal kit delivery sales alone reached $1 billion. Impressive, until you read enthusiastic predictions that push annual revenue for the direct-to-door meal kit delivery market to $10 billion by  2020 (that’s, like, a year away).

Take a look at the three meal kit services in the chart above, Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and Home Chef. Together, they’re getting more than 7 million monthly visitors) to their sites. That’s a full third of the total web users visiting any box subscription site.

According to Statista, 27 percent of Internet users purchased restaurant and meal kits in 2016 to take advantage of the convenience of getting boxes of pre-measured ingredients with recipes in tow to prepare restaurant-quality meals at home. Meal kits typically cost 30 percent less than what it would cost to have the same meal out.

Food boxes are attractive because they deliver a varied menu of meal options to a wide range of target customers. Of course, as with anything else online, subscribers can also order specific types of meals, including:

• Organic (non-GMO)

• Veggie-centric

• Paleo

• Low-carb

• Specialty Diets

• Farm-to-Table home meal prep

So, while a company like Purple Carrot specializes in helping subscribers prepare plant-based meal kits, Green Chef offers organic paleo meals. Other services still offer subscribers a little of everything. The average price per meal kit hovers right around $10 per person, give or take a buck or two (and depending on the company, niche(!!), and amount of food a subscriber orders).

Source: Statista

TARGET CUSTOMER

Packaged Facts lists age as THE MOST important factor in identifying shoppers who are most likely to subscribe to fresh meal kit subscription services. Subscribers tend to be partnered parents between the ages of 25 and 44 years old who live in urban environments, have mid-range incomes, advanced degrees, and school-aged children still living at home. Interestingly, while women are more likely to own a subscription service, men are more likely to subscribe to multiple services each month.

Meal kit subscribers are typically people who are comfortable shopping online. In fact, most of them have purchased something online in the seven days leading up to their purchase of a meal kit.

A Growing Market Endures Growing Pains

Source: Subscription Boxes in 2018 – Hitwise

We had to be careful digging up stats about this industry because between 2017 and 2018, the meal kit delivery market as a whole fell a bit from grace, and several issues continue to affect meal kit delivery companies.

STANDING OUT CROWDED MARKET

While having a box of fresh meal ingredients is a relatively new trend, these types of meal kit subscriptions actually fall under the grocery store sector. So, yes the direct competitors in this space are other existing web-based food box subscription services, but these companies are increasingly having to compete against (or partner with) grocery store chains like Kroger and other retailers that are moving into the meal kit market.

In 2018, Walmart announced it would be rolling out its own meal kits to 2,000 store locations. As well, a growing number of grocery store chains are slowly but surely making the transition into online grocery sales.

The Motley Fool estimates there are more than 150 food subscription box companies in the U.S. alone, and only 10  percent of American consumers have actually tried a meal kit delivery service. For companies that aren’t yet household names, they need a strategy to stand out or they will be forced to compete on price to win business over the other unknown companies. It’s a veritable race to the bottom.

LOWERING THE COST OF DELIVERY

When Chef’d unexpectedly shut down in July 2018, it laid off employees and halted operations effective immediately. Chef’d was one of the first subscription food box services in the market to sell food meal kits to both home delivery subscribers and grocery stores. Chef’d also allowed subscribers to select meal kits from a menu of thousands of options. Its sudden shutdown rocked the meal kit delivery market, which was also in the midst of sorting out the rapid decline in growth of the market’s leading company, Blue Apron.

Brittain Ladd wrote a piece for Forbes.com addressing the ongoing challenges with meal kit delivery companies. In it, Ladd wrote, “The Achilles heel of meal-kit companies is that the business has exceptionally high customer acquisition costs, high operational and supply-chain costs, high logistics costs and low customer retention.”

Meal kit delivery companies have been scrambling to find better ways to manage supply and streamline the process of fulfilling hundreds of thousands of customers orders that need to be immediately packaged and shipped. Flaws in the system are an expensive fix, but the cost of not fixing these flaws is usually happy customers.

Blue Apron has been able to lift profits and reduce the cost of goods sold by laying off four percent of its workforce and bringing in executives who have supply chain management expertise.

As for Chef’d, a few days after announcing the closure, Chef’d was purchased by True Food Innovations. Despite the acquisition, which presumably saved the Chef’d brand from oblivion, the brand remains silent, without even an update on social media since the mid-summer shutdown.

RETAINING CUSTOMERS

Blue Apron cited customer retention as a major problem affecting the company’s bottom line. In the second quarter, the company fulfilled 3.1 million orders and had 717,000 customers at the end of June. But that’s 24 percent fewer customers than it serviced in June 2017. According to The Motley Fool, the drop is due, at least in part, to a reduction in the company’s marketing spend in 2017.

Here’s the chink in the supply chain: In order to amortize the cost of packaging and shipping fresh meal kits, companies really would prefer long-term commitments from customers. Customers, on the other hand, aren’t particularly committed to the idea of commitment when it comes to meal kit subscriptions.

According to PYMNTS.com, only nine percent of people who have subscribed to meal kit services have done so for six months or more. Twenty-six percent of subscribers used the service a month, and 39 percent used the service only once. More than half of subscribers (57.1 percent) say they cancel their subscriptions because they weren’t getting enough value for their money. So, they go and try out other food subscription boxes.

Marketing Campaigns for Food Box Subscription Companies

If you notice, two of the above three challenges can be tied to marketing efforts. So, what are food subscription boxes doing to attract customers in such a crowded market? Let’s take a look at some of the big names in the industry, and what they’re doing to navigate the meal kit industry’s notorious growing pains.

PLATED

Plated is an easily customizable food subscription service that delivers ingredients and recipes for you to cook up a storm in the kitchen every night. The plan is available for two, three or four servings each night, and subscribers can order food for two, three, or four nights a week.

On the website, Plated uploads new recipe selections each week that you can choose from for your own box, allowing you to try new meals every week, and discover new foods regularly. You can also choose when and where you get your box delivered, and change it every week if you need to.

Plated entered into an incredibly crowded market, with new meal boxes like this these appearing left, right, and center. The company first came to the attention of the media when they appeared on TV show Shark Tank. While Plated didn’t secure an investment from one of the Sharks, the company’s sales began to climb from to the coverage. To keep that growth going, Plated needed to focus on its marketing strategy, and that’s exactly what it did.

They decided to build an in-store presence for customers. The majority of meal kit subscriptions are run entirely online, and while that works for many customers, others still prefer the kind of face-to-face feeling of buying a physical product in-store. This is why Plated decided to place boxes in select stores to help broaden their market.

The company also launched a new commercial earlier this year that focused on creating dishes that were “Perfectly Plated”. It highlighted that their ingredients were fresh, their seasonings spectacular, and everything is measured out to make your cooking experience easier. While Plated may not have been highlighting anything that was incredibly different from other brands, Planted built on the reputation it had already earned.

Plated has a solid social media strategy in place . The company doesn’t have the biggest following in the industry, it is active and responsive across social channels. Plated uses social to provide followers with meal inspiration and help them make the connection between good food and an improved quality of life.

By investing in different streams of marketing, Plated has managed to secure its brand in the minds of many across the country.

OMAHA STEAKS

Possibly the longest running food subscription service is the family-run Omaha Steaks. Operating for more than 100 years now, these guys know how to source amazing meat for their customers. But, in a changing world where the food subscription market is blowing up so rapidly, how is this legacy company managing to stay afloat?

As a company, Omaha Steaks has always been right at the forefront of technological advances. When it first started trading, social media didn’t exist and SEO wasn’t a thing. The company’s biggest worry was keeping all that high-quality meat fresh. Throughout the years, Omaha Steaks has added direct mail, fax-ordering, in-store capabilities, e-commerce sites, and social media.

Omaha Steaks launched its own app and has a sizable following on Facebook (389.9K) to appeal to the platform’s older demographic (compared to the 13K followers the company has on Instagram). The Facebook store is set up so customers can buy directly through the social platform.

Omaha Steaks has also rolled out multiple deals on Groupon to entice new customers in. But, that hasn’t slowed down its direct mail marketing one bit. This is one where they cannot be built by anyone else – and they use it to keep existing customers sweet, and bring in new users.

You’ll also see an incredibly loyal customer case for this brand. They’ve been around for so many years, you would hope this would be the case, but they never rest on their laurels. Instead, they are always thinking of new ways to reward the loyalty they receive – and that is what makes them really stand out from the crowd. Especially with the amount of new brand shitting the market, knowing that this is one that they can trust really helps customers to keep investing their money.

SIMPLY COOK

( SimplyCook )

One box that’s a little different from the others we’ve mentioned is Simply Cook. This box doesn’t deliver any fresh food to its customers, instead, it sends a selection of spices along with inventive recipes on how to use them. All their recipes are simple and easy to follow, but you’re left to source the majority of ingredients yourself.

So, how could they possibly compete against other boxes who supply everything but the kitchen sink? For one, they are much more affordable, with the UK boxes priced at just £3 a week. You may not be getting all the ingredients, but you are getting the recipes and the extra spices and sauces that are usually a little harder to find.

This is a box for those who love the idea of a food subscription box but aren’t yet convinced they want to drop that kind of money on their weekly food shop. All their recipes only require between four to six fresh ingredients, so you won’t be wandering the aisles looking for what you need. And the finished product serves between 2-4 people, just like the other similar boxes.

( Twitter )

They play on the fact that most people would love to cook more homemade food and inventive meals, but in reality, spend less time in the kitchen than ever before. Every inch of their marketing oozes with this approach, from the name “Simply Cook”, to the clean and simple website design. Simply Cook is another brand that has also spread its wings and dropped in-store products. In a team up with a big name supermarket, they created mini versions of their boxes for customer to purchase right then and there, along with the rest of their groceries.

And, thanks to the holiday season, they’ve even launched a special gift style box for Christmas. They ran a competition on Twitter to help promote this and gave away some boxes for free. All you had to do was follow their account and re-tweet the post in order to be in with a chance to win.

PURPLE CARROT

This holiday season, plant-based meal kit service Purple Carrot (on Instagram @purplecarrottxo) is promoting its 12 Days of Gifting. Each day, the company tells followers a benefit of gifting someone a Purple Carrot subscription and sweetens the pot with a bonus giveaway of a $100 gift card for a complementary online retailer – Farm Girl Flowers (on Instagram @farmgirlflowers). #plantlove

This post, in particular, is for Day 10. The caption lays out the process (with a link) for gifting a Purple Carrot subscription along with steps you need to take to enter the drawing to win the gift card. Smartly, the process requires entrants to tag a floral loving friend in the comments section, first to spark interest in Purple Carrot, and second to fortify the partnership between Purple Carrot and Farm Girl Flowers by broadening the San Francisco-based florist’s Instagram audience.

As well, there are two variations of this promotion, featuring two different images that have the same caption. That way, Purple Carrot can draw the attention of foodies who may happen across the image of the food because they follow one of the 12 vegetarian-theme hashtags included in the caption. Again, smart.

How Meal Subscription Companies Can Win

While food subscription services like the ones above continue to rise and expand, they’ll have to work even harder to stand out from the crowd. Making their boxes individual by offering slightly different services to their competitors will certainly make it easier. But, what else can they do to help secure success?

DIFFERENTIATE

What’s the real difference between your offering and your competitor’s offering – one that actually means something to your customers? For example, Purple Carrot (who is actually one of our clients – we ran influencer campaigns for Purple Carrot and got tons of UGC with some pretty cool outcomes), being the 100 percent plant-based meal kit brand is an automatic differentiator in a crowded market of chicken dinners. That alone, helps the company to continue growing. According to Purple Carrot CEO Andy Levitt, the company has “the strongest customer retention data in the industry.”

CONSIDER PARTNERSHIPS

While the convenience of having food delivered to your door is one of the main selling points of these subscription boxes, having some form of product available in stores is a great addition to a marketing strategy. The challenge is finding a partner that won’t force you to drive your prices down just to get on store shelves.

You’ll be able to attract and bring in new customers who prefer traditional supermarket shopping. By seeing your product in store during their grocery shop, it doesn’t seem as foreign an idea to them than simply ordering online.

You’ll also be allowing customers to try out your product before purchasing a regular subscription. Many of us already own subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon, Spotify and the local gym (most of which probably started with trial subscriptions).

CONSIDER AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Affiliate programs like Groupon and Pinchme are a powerful source of both traffic and customer acquisition for subscription box services. Hitwise credits free sample site Pinchme.com with netting Graze a 10 percent boost in clicks.

BUILD ON SOCIAL MEDIA

For the most part, food subscription boxes are marketed to Millennials. If you’re not investing in social media, then you’re really missing a trick. With the amount of time this generation spends online, you’ll need to have a solid presence there, as well as something a little different.

Many of these brands have run competitions on their social media sites, which is always a great way to boost your stats and spread the word a little further about your product. Encouraging customers to share pictures of their finished meals – especially on Instagram – will also help to promote your brand to the perfect target market, the food obsessed.

BOOST RETENTION WITH EMAIL

More than overall retail, using email for continuous engagement with customers is especially useful in the subscription box space, according to Hitwise.

KEEP THINGS MOBILE-FRIENDLY

Remember your audience, and make sure they can easily navigate your site from their phones. Not just access it, but navigate – find what they’re looking for and make selections and purchases fast and easy.

Hitwise’s Subscription Boxes in 2018 report (which you can download here) identified mobile as the source for 65 percent of the traffic to subscription box sites, and 57 percent of the traffic to meal kit sites.

FOCUS ON VALUE

The big difference between these products is that the customer needs to keep returning month after month. So, these brands have to work extra hard to garner some real brand loyalty from their users. This goes well beyond just having a good product. Offering up incentives to stay with them, rewards for bringing in friends, and special VIP competitions are just some of the extra things they need to be doing.

5 Social Marketing Strategies Brands Like Ikea, Ace Hardware and Chalk Ink Are Using to Get Their Products in Front of Buyers

If there’s no place like home, then there aren’t many activities quite as satisfying as personalizing your living space to make it feel like home. For that, you’re going to embark on at least one of three activities – home improvement, decorating your home, or furnishing your home. And you need look no further than your own social media feed for design ideas and products to help you get the job done.

Ahead of the New Year / Spring Cleaning season, here are 5 effective social media strategies top home decor and home improvement brands are using to boost brand awareness, get products in front of buyers and get foot traffic in stores.

Home Improvement and Home Design Are a BIG Deal… Everywhere

Home Decor

Home decor and DIY / home improvement aren’t just big business, they’re a big deal. In the US, shoppers spent $122 billion on home decor in 2016. US home improvement retailers expect to generate more than $409 billion in sales by 2019, and the global home decor market could reach $664 billion by 2020.

As disposable income continues to grow in Middle Eastern and Asian countries, the demand for home goods grows as well. In fact, the Asian market is the fastest-growing home goods market in the world. Worldwide home decor sales are on track to grow by 4.2 percent year-over-year for the five-year period from 2015 to 2020.

In the months between the New Year and Spring Cleaning Season (which 38 percent of those surveyed start in March), Americans will spend an average of $165 on home decorating according to the Offers.com Home Decor Survey 2018.

The list of top brands shoppers name as their go-to for home decor is made up of retailers who are great at balancing trends and quality with affordability.

And yes… you may read articles about how American Millennials aren’t buying houses as quickly as their parents and grandparents did at their age, but they are buying homes, eventually.

Home Improvement

On the home improvement/design project side, Millennials are DIYing like nobody’s business. Nearly 7 in 10 Millennials are handling home improvement projects themselves and relying on home improvement retailers like Ace Hardware, The Home Depot and Lowe’s to tackle renovations.

Source: Zillow

According to The Zillow Group Report on Housing Trends, Millennials are taking on these home improvement projects… but 66 percent of the time it’s just to add their own personal touch to a space, not really to FIX fix anything. That’s true across the board – across demographics and all over the country.

The Empire Today Home Improvement Survey 2017 reflected the same outcome – most people are embarking on renovation projects to pretty-up their spaces.  Coincidentally, painting is the most common home improvement endeavor undertaken by homeowners.

Social Media’s Influencing How People Spend on Home Design

Social media is directly influencing how people spend on home decor and home improvement projects. Twenty-eight percent of homeowners have made at least one purchase for their home in the last 12 months based on what they saw in a friend’s social media feed.

While Boomers and older Gen Xers get the majority of their design information and inspiration from magazines and television shows like HGTV and This Old House, according to SoFi, 44 percent of homeowners between the ages of 18 and 44, and 29 percent of homeowners over the age of 45 rely on social networks like Pinterest and Instagram to get inspiration for these kinds of design projects. You would be hard-pressed to come up with a brand in the home improvement/home decor space that didn’t have a presence on Instagram, Pinterest or both.

Pinterest Totally Dominates the Social Media + Home Decor World

In summer 2017, Pinterest reported there were 11 billion home decor pins on the platform and 2.3 billion home decor searches and saves per year. Pinterest alone reaches 40 percent of the people who have made home furnishing purchases within the last six months, and users say Pinterest is THE MOST influential platform for home decor and home design inspiration.

User-wise, Pinterest doesn’t have as many monthly active users as Facebook or Instagram. At the end of September 2018, the platform had 250 million monthly active users. But unlike Faebook and Instagram, 93% of Pinners use the platform to plan for or make purchases. Sixty percent of Pinners have used Pinterest to actually MAKE purchasing decisions for home decor.

Home decor is one of the three most popular search categories on Pinterest as well as one of the top shopping categories that lead to purchases.

Part of the platform’s charm is that it’s always tugging on me with cool ideas. A few days ago, the December Trends email landed in my inbox with insights into what’s hot on Pinterest, much of it focused on home decor. Out of the six topics covered in The Top Trends for December 2018, three of them were specifically about home decor.

Dark green living rooms are making a comeback…

People are also into smoke and cardboard art…

Open closets are a thing…

The above is a screenshot of a portion of the trends report email I got. When I clicked on the hyperlink for “open closets”, the next page featured a collection of pins tagged open closet.

There’s a Promoted Pin from Interior Define. Other pins include images from brands like Pottery Barn, Ikea, Wayfair, eBay, and Etsy.

And E-Commerce is Driving Sales of Home Goods

In addition to sourcing ideas only, most people are actually buying both furniture and home decor items online, often in lieu of going into store locations. Furniture and home furnishings make up 12.9 percent of total retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. So, for every $10 spent at any store online, $1.29 of that amount was spent on something for the house.

Why would anybody want to shop online for a comfy chair they can’t test out in the store? Simple answer – shopping online provides consumers with access to more products and more product variations. Shoppers can visit online stores for web-based retailers like Wayfair that don’t have physical stores as well ass physical stores that may not have nearby locations. Shoppers can also see a wider variety of items that they can have shipped to local retailers and even see the individual store inventory for specific products.

For instance, in Walmart.com’s marketplace, you are as likely to see items shipped by Overstock.com and Wayfair as you are to see those shipped by Walmart.

Walmart is working to expand both the e-commerce side of its business and home decor, launching brands like Allswell Home (on Instagram @allswellhome), a luxe mattress and bedding line. On December 6th, Walmart announced it was acquiring online home decor retailer Art.com, adding to Walmart’s growing portfolio of digital brands like Moosejaw, Hayneedle, and Jet.com.

According to Walmart stakeholders, part of the reason for the acquisition is to help Walmart target the younger, tech-savvy  audience that doesn’t make it into Walmart’s store locations. The acquisition will also enable Walmart to leverage Art.com’s augmented reality technology.

Even for retailers like At Home which doesn’t have a shopping cart feature, an online presence simplifies the shopping process. I like to use At Home’s search feature to find stuff I like, then check to see if the product I see online is available in any of the locations near me.

5 Cool Social Media Strategies We’ve Seen DIY and Home Decor Brands Use

#1 Running print campaigns

This is an area we don’t talk about a whole lot, but many businesses can benefit from having both an online and an offline marketing strategy in place.

I talked a bit earlier in this post about magazines and television still being an important part of the inspiration process for consumers over the age of 45. So, running an offline campaign alongside your online efforts can help you reach your goals faster. I have two examples here…

CHALK INK

Chalk Ink first landed on my radar as I flipped through the July / August 2018 issue of House Beautiful. The company had a full-page ad in that issue…

When I saw it, I immediately snapped a picture of it as a mental note to check Chalk Ink’s marketing on other platforms – i.e., see what kind of fun content was showing up on Instagram. I originally assumed Chalk Ink would be targeting moms with school-aged kids. I couldn’t immediately think of another use for Chalkboard paint or chalk marketers. I totally forgot about Instagrammers in particular using chalkboards and letter boards to create and post textual messages. Chalkboard messages have been reappropriated from the coffeehouse culture of using script or calligraphy to write messages and menus on chalkboards.

So, yeah… Chalk Ink is active on Instagram (@chalk.ink).

As I scrolled through the company’s Instagram feed, I spotted a post announcing another print ad in Entrepreneur Magazine.

I didn’t notice an immediate connection between what they were posting on social and the ads that were running in national magazines. Which brings me to my next example…

#2 Running symbiotic online and offline campaigns together

TOMORROW HYBRID MATTRESSES

I also came across a print ad for Tomorrow Hybrid Mattresses, which looked a lot like Instagram fodder to me.

That immediately made me search the company’s Instagram feed for the same image, which I found. Variations of this image can also be found on the brand’s website.

Source: Instagram

Tomorrow (which is a Serta brand) consistently runs influencer campaigns like this one with influencer Tal Lee (on Instagram @tallee).

There are also tons of posts featuring professional athletes… like this Instagram post from NBA shooting guard Jacob Evans III (on Instagram @j.n.e.iii)

Or this Instagram post featuring professional NFL linebacker Alec Ogletree (on Instagram @misterogletree52)…

And this one with NBA point guard Elfrid Payton (New Orleans Pelicans; on Instagram @elfrid)

#3 Become a resource for #goals

WAYFAIR

Once upon a time, Wayfair was dozens and dozens of individual drop shipping ecomm sites until its founder got the brilliant idea to make Wayfair one awesome marketplace for the coolest-looking furniture on earth. The brand runs multiple branded accounts on Instagram and Pinterest. Smartly, Wayfair creates a lot of content designed to help shoppers source inspiration.

Becoming a source of inspiration offers a couple of cool benefits. First, becoming creating valuable content that includes looks, trends, and design ideas gives you more opportunities for your customers and prospects to engage with your brand.

Second, the analytics such as bookmarks, repins, Likes, comments and regrams will give you insights into which ideas and trends your customers are most interested in seeing more of, so you know which products (plural) they are more likely to save, “cart “, and buy.

Wayfair’s Wayfair Professional account on Instagram features both design ideas for home offices and commercial spaces, as well as actual designed spaces the company has created, like this Instagram post of the reception area of Brit + Co (@britandco).

The Wayfair US Pinterest account includes 15 boards one of which is the Style Inspiration board, comprised of more than 2200 pins. This board alone has more than 363K Pinterest followers. What’s cool about this board is it isn’t your run-of-the-mill chair-and-table pics. Wayfair’s inspiration section includes trendy ideas for cartography-inspired decor, as well as ideas for design ideas for vintage, cottage, southwestern and even speakeasy style decor.

#4 Being a regular person, so to speak

IKEA

Ikea is an absolute MASTER at understanding that there’s more going on in a buyer’s world than just shopping for furniture. Ikea does a great job at tapping into what’s going on in popular culture and reappropriating it to fit the brand.

Ikea’s now Ikonic (see what I did there?) back-to-college video series entitled “Oddly Ikea” featured a 25-minute ASMR video that tiptoed through a series of products (and gently-spoken product information) as part of a dorm room design inspiration piece. Coincidentally, the image below is from that ASMR video, paused on a screenshot of someone tapping their fingers against a 200-thread count sheet set… to “hear every thread”.

But beyond the curiously enjoyable ASMR video last year, Ikea is also great at drumming up design inspiration, both in-store and online. Ikea’s Pinterest account is 45 boards, most of them are design inspo boards.

Another smart move – Ikea has stepped outside the home to include inspiration boards for things like the office, food, holidays and even weddings.

#5 Creating DIY and How-To Content

Fun fact: For people who plan to do home renovations and improvement in the coming year, 52 percent expect there will be a 50/50 split between what they intend to do themselves and what they intend to hire a professional to do. So brands that are able to create content that walks DIYers through simple (and even more advanced) techniques for doing things like building a table or maintaining a garden can get a spike in their sales by teaching. .

ACE HARDWARE

If there’s one home improvement brand that has the How-To content thing down to a science, it’s Ace Hardware. Your local Ace Hardware isn’t a giant superstore. If you have one near you, it probably looks like the local hardware store – easy to navigate, no chance of getting lost, and accessible inventory that you can reach… or grab a step stool to get when absolutely necessary.

Ace Hardware has found a way to get eyes on its products and on its brand through a series of super-useful home dwellers videos. Sure, you can learn how to build a table, but you can also learn how to fix broken Christmas lights, how to keep mice out of your house when it gets cold, and the proper way to divide perennials.

Ace skipped the typical product reviews and went one step further to show the utility of its products. For instance, Ace has a series of videos of cool recipes for the Traeger Grill. Not just ribs, but corn casserole, S’mores cones, root beer pulled pork, jerkey, and smoked deviled eggs.

Ace’s YouTube channel has more than 17K subscribers. But get this – the channels has racked up 16.8 million video views.

Ace Hardware generates content ideas like every one of its retailer-owned stores is populated by real people who actually live in real houses. It makes sense that Ace Hardware is the top-ranking home improvement store chain in the United States for customer satisfaction.

Ace’s tagline forever has been “Ace is the place with the helpful hardware folks.” the company’s social media strategy supports that mission. So, it’s content isn’t really design inspiration so much as helping people solve real issues. Super smart.

Even on Pinterest, there is as much DIY content as there is inspiration or product info content.

Wrapping it -Up

We are making the transition from year-end to the New Year, and as home owners and apartment dwellers are collecting ideas for the next big home design purchase, brands can begin incorporating these super effective digital marketing strategies into their 2019 arsenal.

Of course, if you need help with your next big marketing push, our platform is all about the data and simplifies what could otherwise be an extremely onerous process of rolling out a highly-targeted, effective influencer marketing campaign. We can help. Just call.

Holiday Campaign Analysis: Fast Fashion Brands vs High-End Department Store Brands

A staple of the holiday season (and hands-down one of the best parts of the holiday season) are the holiday parties… and the chance to get dressed up for each one. Holiday parties present the perfect opportunity for fashion brands to do some savvy marketing to get their outfit ideas in front of party goers who are actively shopping for the best styles for their next big shindig.

For most shoppers the money is a driving force behind any apparel purchases. Fast fashion gives the masses easy access to a range of styles without blowing the budget. On the opposite end of the spectrum, high-end stores offer consumers a taste of luxury with high-quality garments that cost a lot more.

In this post, we’re going to dive into some of the best holiday marketing campaigns for getting eyes on your product. Take a look at these inventive, disruptive, and original campaigns from last holiday season.

Department Store Campaigns

John Lewis & Partners

37 department stores, 12 John Lewis at home and 2 shops at St Pancras International and Heathrow Terminal

High-end British department store John Lewis & Partners is famous for their Christmas TV commercials. Every year, the British public waits with bated breath for the premiere of their ad – usually during the commercial break of hit TV show The X Factor. Their ads are filled with heartwarming moments, covers of hit songs (which almost ALWAYS end up climbing the charts to the number one spot), and incredibly shareable content.

2018 marks the twelfth installment of John Lewis’ iconic Christmas advert, and people are already talking about it and taking guesses on what it could be. Plus, since John Lewis is a department store, it sells a wide range of products, including fashion brands.

Where fashion is related, the company’s marketing largely targets shoppers who buy mid-priced and high-end brands like L.K. Bennett, Kurt Geiger and Karen Millen. As well, the company’s own line of products is high-quality with a high price tag. This hasn’t stopped them from being a popular holiday shopping destination though – far from it. John Lewis’ sales figures have been steadily increasing year-on-year, and the rising popularity of its Christmas ads could well have something to do with this.

In fact, for Christmas 2017, its fashion sales rose by over 8% – a significant increase for this retail giant, especially in such difficult financial times over in the UK.

Angle: Heartfelt

So, let’s take a look at their TV commercials that have caused such success for the brand in the past. Here is their 2017 ad “Moz the Monster”:

This year’s 2018 concept, “Some gifts are more than just a gift” features none other than Elton John. And it’s touching, relatable and brilliant.

A lot of other British brands have done their best to follow in John Lewis’ footsteps, creating ads that are emotional, imaginative and festive. While some of their attempts have been well-received, there’s no question that John Lewis & Partners dominates Christmas advertising over the pond. But, why have these other brands fallen short? It’s all to do with the way our brains work.

Here’s why John Lewis ads work

The John Lewis adverts don’t usually contain much branding. In fact, the only time we see the brand at all is usually right at the end as the commercial comes to a close. The reason the ads are so effective is because they tap into our emotions. We’re used to seeing commercials of this kind every year from the same brand, so we can still tell who’s advertising to us, despite the lack of branded material.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t take inspiration from what these guys are doing though. We just have to make sure that it works for our brand in a different way. Pulling on the heartstrings is nothing new in marketing – especially around this time of year. You just need to find a way to make it work for you.

In-store marketing

One thing that John Lewis does really well with its Christmas marketing campaigns is extending the message beyond just the digital space. The ad premieres on live TV, which is teased in the weeks leading up to it. Despite so many of us leaving scheduled TV behind and choosing to watch at our own pace, by showcasing their commercial during a popular show, they have many people tuning in, even if just to catch the world premier of the new John Lewis holiday ad.

The company also takes its campaign in-store with show stopping window displays across the country. For example, with last year’s “Moz the Monster” campaign, John Lewis actually had a window display that would break wind and burp in the same way as the titular character does in the ad. Not super Christmas-y… but definitely something different to draw the crowds, that’s for sure!

Online shopping is convenient, and great for shopping the myriad retailers that don’t actually have physical locations nearby (or physical locations at all). Still, every Thanksgiving, people line up for the chance to have that in-store experience despite the fact that they can take advantage of most Black Friday deals online.

Key Takeaways

1. Develop your own style of Christmas marketing – don’t try and copy other brands.

2. Make your marketing well rounded, not just focusing on digital.

3. Don’t only focus your marketing online. A lot of gift buying at least still happens in actual stores.

Harvey Nichols

16 Locations across Europe, the Middle East and Asia

Another British department store next (any guesses where this writer lives?) is Harvey Nichols. This is another brand that is known for its ads around Christmas time, but instead of pulling on people’s heart strings, Harvey Nichols does its best to tickle our funny bones instead. Harvey Nichols commercials are usually full of sass and wit, and show us what Christmas is really like for many of us.

Angle: Shamelessly Relevant

One ad that demonstrated this concept brilliantly was the company’s 2015 holiday ad battling the horrors of “Gift Face”. We’ve all been there, when someone has bought us a gift that really, is pretty awful, but we pretend to like it anyway. Harvey Nichols are showing us how to avoid this by shopping with them, of course.

Let’s take a look at the ad below:

The campaign ran mostly on digital, with social media posts sharing gift ideas to help people avoid inflicting the horrible “gift face” on other people, all accompanied by a grimacing face emoji. An incredibly shareable campaign that appeals perfectly to the store’s target market of younger consumers. While still a high-end retailer, Harvey Nichols is a slightly fresher brand than many others in this niche. Which can easily be seen through their choice of marketing style.

When Harvey Nichols talks about Christmas, it doesn’t follow the old trope of how it’s better to give than receive. No, these guys are much more honest about things, and fully believe that receiving a gift is way better – as long as that gift is good. Its tongue-in-cheek approach to festive marketing definitely helps them to stand out from all the emotional charged and mushy efforts made by its competitors.

And, as we may have mentioned before, standing out with your festive marketing is essential to success this time of year. This isn’t the first year Harvey Nichols has made waves with their marketing. A few years before in 2013, their ad campaign “Sorry, I spent it on myself” won a host of awards as well.

Harvey Nichols definitely built a reputation for themselves for fun Christmas marketing.

Expanding beyond digital

Harvey Nichols is another brand whose campaign worked perfectly outside of the digital space.This ad campaign ran on social media. The ad itself was uploaded to YouTube, and a number of social media posts were published to promote the in-store experience to go along with it.

The “Gift Face” campaign also translated perfectly to print ads. The amusing grimace of people opening badly thought out gifts works really well in their materials, and really helps to carry over the message to a different medium.

(Image from: AdWeek)

The brand also paired this with in-store product displays suggesting what to buy to avoid “Gift Face” as well as window displays – which are a huge part of the Christmas shopping experience for many consumers. Making this a well-rounded campaign, going beyond digital.

The Takeaway

1. Know your target market and tailor your approach to Christmas marketing to what they like

2. Humour can be a great vehicle for viral content, and to bring people into your store

3. Playing on the more realistic aspects of the festive season can help your campaign stand out from competitors

Fast Fashion and Off-Price Campaigns

H&M

4,553 locations across North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia

High-street clothes giant H&M has more than 4,000 locations around the globe and a great range of everyday fashion at affordable prices. H&M has made a name for itself as a go-to store for the trend-conscious.

Angle: ‘Tis the Season for Giving

In 2017, H&M went all out with their Christmas campaign, employing the help of celebrity names like Jesse Williams, Nicki Minaj and John Turturro to help promote the brand in the weeks leading up to the holidays. The brand released a three-minute film and shared it online a month before Christmas to remind us that caring about others and giving of yourself are the real meaning of Christmas.

Through storytelling, the ad manages to show off a wide range of the brand’s products, both their casual range and their party / formal fashion pieces (H&M really squeeze A LOT of famous faces in this spot). I think more than department store ads, we actually get to see the products H&M was promoting for the holidays.

And, by employing celebrity faces as part of their campaign – and pretty faces they were – H&M used the age-old tactic of influencer marketing on a pretty grand scale.

Unlike the department stores, H&M focuses its festive marketing on clothing alone. With more products available, the department stores focus on a mixture of clothing and gifting, so their appeal is a little broader.

Expanding beyond digital

While the full version of the ad was only online, a shortened version was shown on TV for H&M’s Christmas commercial, reaching that all-important TV audience. This campaign also paired with a season-appropriate message of giving. The end of the story sees the young girl giving all her own presents away to children who lost theirs, mirroring H&M’s own commitment to giving donations to UNICEF. So, charity is a big theme.

H&M has always been at the forefront of giving back through fashion with the in-store clothes donation stations. This campaign helped to continue that message throughout the festive season. A lot of us like to do our bit for charity this time of year, so by advertising that buying with H&M would be helping Unicef, they are able to tap into this market effectively.

The Takeaway

Using well-known influencers helps to give your brand credibility, and draw in their followers as well as your own

Pairing up with a charity and giving back is not only good for the charity, but good for business as well

TJ Maxx

1238 locations across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia

One of the world’s largest discount stores, TJ Maxx, had their own unique spin on holiday marketing last year. They wanted customers to remember what Christmas is really about, beyond the food, the presents, and the parties – it’s about being with your family and loved ones. Together with Marshalls and HomeGoods, TJ Maxx launched a marketing campaign centered all around “love” rather than sales.

While many stores geared up for the holiday shopping season back in 2016 by launching Black Friday sales, TJ Maxx decided to take a different approach. The company decided to showcase how low their prices are year round. People don’t need to rush around making sure to catch the sales window to buy value gifts from this store!

(https://twitter.com/tjmaxx/status/798163349091586048)

TJ Maxx launched an inventive Twitter campaign where followers had the chance to win some exceptional festive prizes. But, they weren’t offering up toys, clothes, or gadgets. Instead, the retailer helped people enjoy Christmas the way it was supposed to be – with their loved ones. For the month of November, TJ Maxx ran three separate competitions in which people could win money to help them to either get home for the holidays or decorate their homes to make it nice and festive.

Angle: Tradition

TJ Maxx stood out because it focused on the “warm and fuzzy” side of Christmas that we all love the most… seeing friends, family, and loved ones; decorating our homes; and all the little traditions we enjoy love to follow. While other retailers focused on holiday sales, and the products they wanted to sell – TJ Maxx shifted the conversation to a happier, more wholesome topic.

Expanding beyond digital

While their competitors plastered the word SALE across every window display through the festive season, TJ Maxx swapped it for LOVE. The company helped to raise money for local food banks across the country by donating 100% of the money it raised for the cause. The retailer actually raised and donated about $2 million dollars.

TJ Maxx was one of few stores that chose to close on Thanksgiving, in keeping with their holiday message, and allow the staff to spend the time with their families instead of working in the store. Nice.

The Takeaway

Sales are always important, but remember what the holidays are really about, and your customers will appreciate it

If you’re going to run a competition on social media, consider offering up different prizes to your competitors

Be sure that your companies actions around the holiday season reflect the message you’re putting out there

Conclusion

At this time of year, everyone wants to get ahead of the competition in terms of holiday sales. The fashion brands we looked at today are just a small section of examples of how traditional Christmas marketing can be turned on its head. So, whether you choose to hit the heartstrings or draw people in with laughter, the key to a successful marketing campaign is to stand out from the ever-increasing crowd.

If you only take away one piece of advice from this article though, let it be this: the customer is key. All of these brands knew exactly what their target market looks like, and tailored their strategies to that information. If you’re working with millennials, then play on the relatability and social media communication. If you’re targeting baby boomers, focus on the family aspect of the festive season across TV and print. Knowing your customer is the key to success.

What have been your favorite fashion campaigns this holiday season? Let us know in the comments below.

A Look at 3 Holiday Campaign Strategies from Sephora, eos and Benefit Cosmetics UK: What They Did, Why It Worked, and How You Can Model Their Success

Every year, when the festive holiday season rolls around, we see a boost in digital marketing campaigns across all industries. But, more than many others, there is usually a noticeable rise in content from beauty brands. And, it’s no surprise, either. The health and beauty industry tops $80 billion in annual revenue in the US alone, and is set to rise even higher in the next few years.

Thanks to the rise of social media – and the “selfie generation” – beauty stays top-of-mind for most people. Filters aside, most people are still very conscious of their appearance and, whether actively or inactively, constantly on the lookout for products we think can help us in that area.

During the holiday season, beauty manufacturers pull out all the stops – holiday packaging, limited edition products, holiday-themed colors (and flavors) line store shelves for the sole purpose of enticing buyers to make holiday purchases. That means holiday marketing campaigns, and some of them are pretty awesome.

So today, we’re cataloging some of our favorite campaigns and providing that all important play-by-play analysis of why each campaign worked and some tips for how you can roll out similar campaigns for your own products.

Benefit Cosmetics UK

In 2015, Benefit Cosmetics UK launched a Twitter marketing campaign called #12DaysOfTweetmas. Taking inspiration from the famous Christmas carol, “The 12 Days of Christmas”, this beauty brand partnered with other industry names to hold exclusive giveaways everyday throughout the lead-up to Christmas. Each new day of “Tweetmas” they would announce the latest giveaway, and tell followers to RT the prize tweet, as well as follow Benefit on Twitter, and whichever company they had partnered up with.

A common giveaway tactic, the retweet chain helps to boost your account’s following, as well as get your tweets seen by more people thanks to the re-tweets. And, by partnering with other big name brands in the beauty world, they managed to extend their reach even further.

They saw some pretty impressive results for this campaign as well. As we can see from the tweet above, any given prize tweet was received hundreds, if not thousands of retweets in the hopes of winning the prize. Sure, some of the entrants were probably already following Benefit on Twitter, the brand undoubtedly attracted a good number more followers over the course of the campaign.

The most successful tweet in this campaign was on their 5th day of Tweetmas when Benefit partnered with hair care brand GHD to give away some of GHD’s incredibly popular hair care appliances. This tweet gained 3k retweets, 600 comments and 800 likes. Even for a brand as big as Benefit, this is a pretty impressive haul on Twitter. Benefit revved-up engagement of around two percent, which is good for a brand with such a large following (220K at the time).

WHY DID IT WORK?

Everything about Benefit’s campaign was totally on-brand for the company. As a business, Benefit has such a distinct brand voice. Followers will immediately recognize a post from the brand as it moves through their social feeds. These guys have truly managed to capture the perfect synergy of carrying their branding through every single aspect of their marketing. Having such a clear brand voice like this, makes it much easier for them to stand out in the incredibly busy world of Christmas campaigns on social media.

Their target market is young, fashion-forward women with a cool sense of style. This information has clearly influenced the brands they choose as partners, as well as the wording they use in their posts. Referring to their partners as “BFFs” keeps the messaging young and fresh, without sounding like they’re trying too hard.

The graphics they use in this campaign also perfectly balance on the line between clear branding and festive cheer. They manage to keep the images true-to-brand and easy to recognize, while still gracing us all with that warm, Christmas-y feeling.

USING THE BENEFIT CAMPAIGN AS A MODEL

First thing: You have to know your audience. This goes for marketing in general, really. If you don’t know who you’re addressing, your message is only going to fall on deaf ears.

Next, when you start designing your festive campaign, do your best to stay on-brand while mixing in some holiday style. If you usually use a muted color palette, don’t suddenly switch to super bright reds and greens – stay true to your brand. You can still include festive elements – snowflakes, candy canes, reindeer, in a way that works with your brand, not against it.

Finally, don’t be afraid to partner with other brands. Of course, the business world is competitive, but working with other brands, instead of against them, can boost your reach, expand your audience, and help you bring in new customers. This is especially true when you work with other brands in the same niche as yours. A partnership between a company pushing its influencer-endorsed eye shadow palette may be a fantastic match for a brand with a eyebrow gel that’s currently trending. Work together to reach mutually-beneficial goals.

Sephora

Isn’t Sephora like some sort of beauty casino? You get in there under the perfect lighting and completely lose track of time! One reason the beauty mega store is so famous is because it has such as phenomenal selection of cosmetics and skin care products! Cosmetics to suit every style, skin color, and budget… the store is a hub of beauty magic. As with many beauty brands, Sephora’s marketing materials featured flawless-looking [predominantly] white women. For its 2017 holiday campaign, Sephora change all of that.

Instead of working with professional models, they asked their own store employees to apply for the chance to star in their next campaign instead. Over 1,000 Sephora staff applied for this chance and 10 were selected. The chosen few were invited to participate because of their own unique definitions of beauty. The model search alone gained A LOT of publicity.

(Image : Sephora)

The theme for their campaign was “Reach Out and Gift”. It focused on how beauty can be an amazing gift, but is incredibly personal to each and every individual. To highlight this, they have gathered a beautifully diverse and individualistic selection of people to represent their brand.

Each of the selected Sephora team members starred in a video posted to the official Sephora Instagram account along with a short bio describing who they are, where they’re from, and what items are always in their makeup bags.

This campaign stood out from other Christmas marketing because it wasn’t actually focused that much on Christmas. Instead, it celebrated gift-giving in general, catering to a much more diverse audience than the typical festive fare. Even though Christmas is still the most popular winter holiday here in the US, it is by no means the only one.

WHY DID IT WORK?

By a campaign that is more inclusive, Sephora was able to market to a wider audience, without losing that Christmas shopper base that everyone else is tapping into. And, in today’s tumultuous political and cultural climate, that campaign would definitely have struck a chord with Millennial and Gen X customers.

Sephora focused on video content for this campaign, and didn’t limit the campaign to one social media platform. The YouTube video for the campaign attracted over 1.5 million views. Over on Instagram, the individual videos reached around 250k views each.

It also worked for the most fundamental reason – it appealed to a wider audience than most beauty campaigns. The campaign featured people from a variety of ethnicities, religions, and genders – all representing their own version of beauty. In a world where we are inundated with perfect images of super-styled influencers, it was a breath of fresh air for many, who could finally see themselves represented by a big brand online.

USING THE SEPHORA CAMPAIGN AS A MODEL

Don’t be afraid to stand out with your holiday marketing. At this time of year, people see post after post covered in glitter and bright red. It’s okay to dress-up your post with blue and fur instead. Also, remember that Christmas isn’t the only event being celebrated at the end of the year. Celebrate the diversity of your audience by talking about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Yule as well.

Use “regular people” in your marketing. Whether you dip into your own pool of staff members or ask your customers to be the new face of your campaign, using someone plucked from among the other flowers (was that lame?) can help people better connect with your brand. The beauty industry is notoriously filtered to perfection. But times are changing, and people are sorta over the perfection thing. Make your brand one of the names people associate with real beauty and you’ll be winning.

eos Lip Balm

Millennial favorite eos has mastered social media marketing (no coincidence that eos is one of our clients, either). The company’s distinctive round packaging already helps them to stand out in a sea of similar products, and they use this to their full advantage, creating well-designed and aesthetic Instagram posts for their feed. And, the company’s use of influencer-generated content helps it to broaden its reach even further.

#eosholidaysaver on Instagram

As many beauty brands do around the holidays, eos released special edition packaging and gift sets to entice buyers to use their products as gifts for loved ones. What they did do differently was employ influencers to help showcase their products in a different light.

Even without the Christmas packaging, eos has a fairly individual style – although there have been the inevitable copycats. Ahead of the holiday, the brand encouraged people to use actual lip balms to create Christmas craft projects.

@eosproducts

WHY DID IT WORK?

eos brilliantly capitalized on both its unique product design, and its largely Millennial audience to create a holiday campaign that felt less like marketing, and more like a series of fun projects and challenges. Instead of telling you to buy their products this Christmas, they encouraged followers to use them as decorations, and fun holiday projects.

eos works because, at least for the sake of marketing, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Its marketing campaigns make use of influencers, yes. But more, the influencers turn out the kind of content that engages people – by doing things like creating holiday eos gnomes – without selling to them.

USING THE eos CAMPAIGN AS A MODEL

Again, we have to say it: The number one rule in influencer marketing is to know your audience. This is where eos really shines. By knowing what eos consumers like to do with their spare time, where they are hanging out online, and how to market products to the demographic without annoying them, eos puts itself in the unique position to shape memorable campaigns that boost awareness and drive sales.

Use the knowledge you have on your target audience to dictate where you conduct your marketing, and what kind of influencers would be best for partnerships. Eos worked with influencers in the same niche as their consumers – young, stylish, and crafty. This helped them to reach people who may not have known about their product previously.

Your Holiday Marketing

Whether your brand is in the beauty industry or not, the marketing campaigns we cited above are great examples of how to master your holiday marketing. Being in the business of making people look and feel good, one thing that beauty brands have to be good at is looking good themselves. You’ll notice that every campaign has a striking aesthetic, it needs to in order to showcase their product effectively. But, let’s think about your holiday marketing. Here are some tips to follow to make your campaign a hit.

• Stay on brand: Don’t go too Christmas crazy with your content. Sprinkle the festive spirit over your existing brand, sure, just don’t lose who you are in all that glitter. Whatever kind of campaign you decide to run, make sure your brand can still be heard through all the fairy lights.

• Dare to be different: If you want to stand out and get noticed, you’re going to have to do things a little differently to your competition. Don’t be afraid to take your holiday marketing in a whole new direction this year.

• Make the most of holiday packaging: If your brand is planning on using holiday centric packaging, make this a big part of your digital marketing too. Having packaging that already shows off that holiday spirit can be a big plus for your visual content online too.

• Start early: But not too early. Don’t be that person who decorates their whole house the first day of October. Just bear in mind that Christmas does seem to be starting earlier and earlier every year, so make sure your campaign is ready to go as soon as November rolls around.

• Use a dedicated hashtag: This one works with most marketing campaigns, but especially so around Christmas. By using a dedicated hashtag, you’re encouraging the creation of UGC and giving you more content to share on your own accounts.

Which beauty brand campaigns do you love? Let us know in the comments below!

9 Strategies for Rolling Out a Holiday Food Campaign That Will Boost Brand Awareness and Get More Clicks

Everyone has to eat, right? So marketing and selling food products should be as easy as pie. But, with so many brands and products on the market, ever-changing regulations on how companies are allowed to advertise certain foods, and our continuing obsession with dieting and eating less it’s usually a little more challenging than most people would think to successfully market food items.

With Halloween, Thanksgiving and the holiday season just days away, food is definitely on everyone’s minds. So, it’s the perfect time for brands to roll out some hyper-targeted holiday marketing.

4 Simple Strategies to Get More Attention This Holiday Season

For many, the holiday season is a time for full-on indulgence and enjoying all of our holiday favorites… without guilt. Seriously, we wait all year long to dig into pumpkin pies, heaps of stuffing, chocolates, and eggnog in large part because the holiday season is the only time it’s really available!

Of course, there will always be people who will resist seasonal treats and keep their plates filled with healthier options, but most of us are game to skip the low-carb cauli stuffing (that’s probably a thing) and forget about the dairy-free, egg-free, low-spice vegan nog. Unless your superpower really is finding ways to make already delicious meals equally delicious but more nutritious, just go ahead and expect people to eat what they want between October 31st and December 31st.

We’re going to jump right into our list. We’ve collected a great list of tips below that cover some of the most effective forms of digital marketing for food brands. With the holidays just around the corner, here’s how you can hit the ground running with your holiday campaign this year.

#1 Themed Packaging

One of the simplest ways to get eyes on your product for the holiday season is by changing up your packaging design. This is a proven strategy that works for just about every holiday. Holiday colors and themes are immediately recognizable even for consumers scanning store shelves… or their social media feeds. Adding familiar holiday characters (Rudolph and gang, Santa… Krampus, if that’s your thing), color schemes, and novelty packaging can help your brand grab the attention of shoppers who are in the holiday mood.

Ahead of Halloween, Wrigley is pushing an actual Skittles Selfie Mask in stores. This display was found at a Kroger just outside Atlanta, GA.

#2 Limited Edition Flavors

Has anyone seen my pumpkin spice latte shoes? Haha. Kidding. But doesn’t it feel like we’re sort of running out of things to “pumpkin spice”?

Seriously, holiday flavors rock. In 2016 there was an actual eggnog shortage because demand was so high. A shortage! But part of celebrating the holidays is partaking in cold weather foods and holiday-themed flavors that may only be available a few weeks out of every year. Putting out a limited run of peppermint-flavored this or pumpkin-flavored that can help bring people in to try your product.

Source: @coffeemate

#3 Gift Sets

Another super idea is bundling your products together to create seasonal gift sets. This will encourage customers to buy your brand as a present for others, or simply to enjoy it as part of their own celebrations.

One great example of a brand that’s bundling products for the holiday season is Hickory Farms. In fact, I would venture a bet that one of the images you pull up of Hickory Farms is a holiday gift basket, or those seasonal kiosks that show up at local malls just before the holiday.

Source: Lifestyle influencer @Steffy in a sponsored post for #hickoryfarmsholiday on Instagram

Now, this is probably going to seem like a bit of a departure from your typical holiday gift basket viddles, but another brand that bundles products to sell as holiday gift sets is Graeter’s Ice Cream. For nearly 150 years, Graeter’s has been producing and selling handmade gourmet ice cream.

There are Graeter’s stores in the Midwest and you can find it in your local store. BUT Graeter’s Ice Cream also delivers bundles of ice cream pints in different flavors to your house. You can also send these bundles as holiday gift sets.

Last year, we ran a brand awareness campaign to promote how #AGraetersGift is good and #GiftCardsAreLame

#4 Share the Recipe or Provide the Ingredients

Who doesn’t love seeing delicious food all plated-up and ready to eat? People also like seeing the cooking process as much as they enjoy seeing the finished products.

According to a study by Nielsen, 80 percent of Millennials want to see the nitty gritty, behind-the-scenes details surrounding how their food is made (think food documentaries and baking shows). People will more than likely search for their perfect holiday recipes throughout the months leading up to the big day.

In fact, according to a recent study, the most searched for holiday recipe was actually prime rib, followed closely by turkey. In some states, pizza also topped holiday food list. My point? Just goes to show: Even if you’re not working with a traditional holiday food, there’s still a market out there for you.

Content Marketing Strategies

Content. Content. Content. The virtual world is framed with content. The ongoing desire to gaze at amazing-looking food and get a sneak peek at how meals are made blows the door wide open for some super-effective content marketing. Are there are certainly some staples in this vertical that convert really well with regards to generating clicks.

#5 Video Content

Video content is great for selling food. Video is easy to digest (no pun intended), and easy to follow when homegrown cooks are working to replicate the meals they see on social in their own kitchens.

One brand that is killing it in this sphere at the moment is Buzzfeed and their Tasty sub-brand. What started as a hub of content marketing has now grown into one of the most popular food brands on the web, with their own cookbooks and kitchenware products, to boot.

Buzzfeed’s cooking tutorial videos are quick, snappy, and easy to follow… and are essentially 100 percent mobile-friendly. They show followers how to make everything from pot roast, to meal-preps, to indulgent desserts… basically everything you would need for a killer holiday meal. In fact, as of this writing, there are 105 Thanksgiving recipes, and 112 Christmas recipes alone – who knew there were so many dishes from which to choose?

While Buzzfeed videos are most popular on Facebook – certainly the perfect pause to someone’s grueling workday – Buzzfeed also has a dedicated website which houses all their recipes, too.

Whenever a video is posted on their social media, Buzzfeed includes a link back to the website where followers can find the full recipes alongside the video. Super smart. That’s a great combination of different forms of content marketing, and ideal targeting.

#6 Blog Content

A perfect partner to video content, or even as a stand alone endeavor, blog content is a great place to showcase your food products online. If you’re making short and snappy videos like the ones we mentioned above, pairing them with a more in-depth recipe blogs like Tasty is an ideal way to make the most of your content.

But, it doesn’t have to be solely made up of recipes. There’s a world of content options out there that you can dive into. You know who is good for this? Lifestyle influencers who talk about food and foodies.

You can enlist influencers to talk about where their recipes come from and how they are prepared. By nature, lifestyle influencers tend to incorporate other life-stuff into the mix that their followers would find interesting.

You don’t have to write all these blogs yourself either. Working with influencers – more on that in just a moment – can help you to collate a great selection of blog posts and topics from different perspectives and viewpoints. In fact, having a regular company blog can help to boost your web traffic 3.5x more than companies that post less.

Influencer Marketing Strategies

Of course, here at The Shelf, we’re huge fans of influencer marketing – it’s what we do best! But, the reason we love it is because it works so darn well. Influencer marketing over the holiday season helps you to reach your audience, even when they’re not actively searching for gifts, food, or other products.

By pairing up with the right influencer, you know that your food is going to be photographed from the perfect angle, expertly arranged on a gorgeous flat lay, and beautifully demonstrated in full HD video. We all know how much we wish we could live the beautiful lives of Instagram’s top stars, and maybe if we could eat the same food, we could be on the same track, right? Ah, the beauty of influencer marketing…

#7 Instagrammers

Scroll through your Instagram feed on any given day, and you’re bound to see a good percentage of well-lit, perfectly-plated meals from friends, family, and influencers alike. Along with selfies and travel snaps, pictures of food are some of the most shared content out there right now. So, if you’re a food-focused brand, teaming up with an influencer on Instagram can help you dive right in to this growing trend.

Sources: @themodernproper | @food | @deliciouslyella

Since Fall and Winter are the times for comfort food, infiltrating people’s feeds with images like the ones above can boost your brand more than any other time of year. There are a few options open to you when it comes to foodie influencers, depending on the kind of product you’re promoting.

Health and Fitness

If your product is centered around nutrition, health, weight loss, or fitness then you have the option of working with health-focused influencers. These can range from meal-preppers to dieters to nutritionists. Working with the right influencer in this niche can really help to give your health product credibility in a crowded market.

Recipe Kits

Influencers are great ambassadors for recipe kits. They cook and create your meals, talk about how cost-effective and time-efficient meals were to prepare, and show off great images of both the cooking process and the completed meal. For products like these you can choose to work with recipe-loving influencers, or those who champion quick and easy food, or even budget-friendly influencers.

Snacks and Quick Bites

There are so many options open to the quick food market. Teaming up with busy parents, digital nomads, celebrities, and basically anyone with a busy schedule will work perfectly with your brand.

#8 YouTube Marketing

We already talked about how great video content can be for your food brand, and where better to find a great video creator than on YouTube? There are a number of channels on the video-sharing platform dedicated to food-related content… everything from healthy food prep, to taste test challenges, to drunk cooking. You’re sure to find something to suit your brand.

Source: MyHarto on YouTube

YouTube is all about entertainment value. The creators who do well are experts at coming up with engaging content to attract new viewers and retain old existing ones. Hannah Hart’s My Drunk Kitchen is a wildly popular show on YouTube. In the show, Hart drinks copious amounts of alcohol while attempting to cook a wide range of dishes. She is often joined by guests who take part in both the drinking and the cooking, and the whole endeavor results in lots of silliness and laughs. Her show regularly gets over 100k views per episode, and with over 2.5 millions subscribers, she has an impressive amount of influence in the food industry.

Having your product featured in a show similar to Hart’s allows you to engage with an audience while low-key marketing at the same time.

# 9 User Generated Content

We love user-generated content. Fifty percent of US consumers say the UGC they find about a brands makes them more likely to buy from that brand. User-generated content is a powerful tool for the marketer. And whether UGC comes from an influencer or is unpaid content created by one of your fans, even the simplest food item can make for eye-catching visual content.

Food is deeply ingrained in our celebratory practices. Encouraging your customers to share how they use your products is well worth the effort. Especially as many of us will soon begin to buy less, or at least healthier, food once the New Year rolls around. This is the perfect time to double-down on your marketing.

The Future of Influencer Marketing:

Is Influencer Marketing’s 15 Minutes Coming to An End?

Influencer marketing is dead. The day of the social media influencer is coming to a swift end. Ride it out while you can because soon, the money will dry up for so-called influencers. Will it? If you happen to be a marketer who’s still grappling with whether Instagram-powered influencer marketing is the real deal – and if it isn’t whether the jig is up this post is going to help you organize what’s going on in this space as it relates to the future of influencer marketing. If you’re a blogger or would-be influencer you can stick around, too because you may be wondering if it’s too late to become an influencer.

That’s a good question, and a valid question. And I’m going to answer definitively with a resounding, “No, it’s not too late to become an influencer. Don’t be ridiculous.”

But…

There are caveats. (Come on… you knew there would be right, or I wouldn’t have to write an entire article on this topic.)

So, in this post, I’m going to provide data that supports my point that social media-powered influencer marketing is evolving and maturing, but not dying. And how new best practices and laws are helping to formalize influencer marketing as an industry, not just another growth hacking strategy.

The Trouble with Becoming an Influencer

For all the social validation you get from your online community – whether from friends, followers, or brands – becoming an influencer is hard work.

Real influence is about more than just having a large following

Earning sway on social media is all about creating the right content – the right types of posts, images, and words – to move your audience to do something.

Do something? Yeah, do something. If they’re not moved to DO something, it’s not influence, and you won’t make much money as an influencer… if that’s your goal.

It takes longer than you hoped, but not as long as most people think

Growing your following is great, but it’s just a first step… sort of like deciding you want to become a doctor, but first you have to finish high school. Growing your audience doesn’t make you an influencer (looking at anyone who’s ever “bought” influence), just like finishing high school doesn’t make you a doctor. But you need the audience if you want to become an influencer, just like you need that diploma if you’re ever to become a doctor. And both tracks – whether you’re shooting to be a doctor or an influencer – take time.

It’s A LOT of work… and that work never really stops

Thankfully, becoming an influencer isn’t going to take you a decade to accomplish, but trust me when I say the late nights of curating your feed, compressing images, styling trendy looks, sourcing inspiration where you can find it, figuring out which pictures people like vs which ones they don’t like, launching and managing  a pristine blog, figuring out how to cross-promote to other platforms in a way that’s authentic to THAT platform, and planning content weeks in advance are all tasks requiring consistent mental, physical and emotional energy.

And after you do all of that, you’re going to have to learn to do it for the brands you work with as well if you want to make money as an influencer.

So… no. Not an easy side hustle.

Contrary to popular belief, influencers have to put in a lot of work before they ever get to the point where brands seek them out for partnerships. Plus, the greater their reach and influence, the harder they work to maintain it.

If any of that turns you off, you’re probably not going to win as an influencer. I’m going to talk later on in this post about what happens when you try to skip the hard work and just buy followers.

Reason #1 It’s Not Too Late: More Brands Are Turning to Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a growing sector of digital marketing, in and of itself. In 2015, brands spent $500 million working with social media influencers. In 2017, that number exceeded $2 billion, with campaigns in the fashion and beauty verticals accounting for 40 percent of total spending on influencer marketing.

Not only are more brands launching influencer marketing campaigns, brands are also upping  their influencer marketing budgets. According to Statista, 39 percent of marketers planned to increase their influencer marketing budget for 2018. Across the board, brands boosted their budgets specifically for influencer campaigns by as much as six percent last year. Why? Because earning media through user-generated content works.

Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook – the two platforms marketers favor when it comes to running influencer campaigns – provide users with the opportunity to create textual, visual and multimedia content about anything. When that content happens to be about a brand, it can easily shape how others see that brand. That’s what marketers are banking on, too.

Earned Media

Earned media has been a highly-valued marketing channel in the digital marketing space for decades because it helps marketers find the right audience at the right time, it provides brands with a pool of pre-qualified prospects (i.e. folks who are interested and willing to buy) and it leverages the opinions of strangers for much-needed social proof.

I want to make sure you didn’t miss the part about earned media helping brands to get in front of the qualified prospects. This is especially true of brands working with micro-influencers whose audiences tend to be niched-down and more interest-focused, as opposed to “everybody-follows-me” mega influencers with 500K+ followers.

Spike Lee being a true Knicks fan. Image Owner: Jehjeh123 | Image Source: Wiki Commons

The rule of thumb here is micro influencers are usually followed by people who are interested in that which interests the micro influencer. With mega influencers, however, sometimes you follow just to follow.

I mean, I follow Spike Lee because he’s SPIKE FRIGGIN’ LEE! He’s a cinematic legend and cultural icon! Not because I particularly enjoy the Knicks or Brooklyn-inspired apparel, or super-dope hats, or wacky glasses. Okay, I would rock the hats…

Outsell’s analysis of earned media vs paid media reports 81 percent of small firms and 73 percent of large firms say earned media is as effective or more effective than paid media. The report, The Earned Media Opportunity (which you can download yourself by clicking here), says of the three types of media analyzed:

• Brand-owned media (usually a website) is most effective for both B2B and B2C marketing

• Earned media offers authenticity brands can’t get with paid or owned media

• Millennial marketers see earned media as more effective than do Boomer marketers

Source: Cision

Influencer marketing is an outgrowth of earned media, which may help explain why younger marketers and marketers in tech-savvy industries are more likely to rely on earned media and influencer marketing as a channel for generating leads and boosting brand awareness.

Reason #2 It’s Not Too Late: Because Influencer Marketing Still Works

Influencer marketing isn’t a niche thing anymore. In a survey of 600 fashion industry professionals, more than three in four brands (78 percent) reported running an influencer campaign at some point during 2017. By comparison, two in three brands (65 percent) ran influencer campaigns in 2016.

Handsome superheroes are great for marketing Valentine’s Day, right? Who wouldn’t feel the love if Doctor Strange showed up on their door for V-Day?

Big brands have been successfully leveraging influencer marketing on social for years. Companies like Target, H&M, Adidas, Live Nation (our client), Lord & Taylor, Marvel (remember their Valentine’s Day campaign promoting the DVD release of Doctor Strange?),  Samsung, American Express, Toyota, Hanes (our client), Fairmont, Famous Footwear (client), Neutrogena (client), Microsoft, eos (client), and Ticketmaster (client) are just a handful of the brands partnering with influencers to reach audiences, and here’s why…

Word-of-mouth still works.

I found an Internet-ancient Ad Age article from 2011entitled, “Five Reasons You Need to Focus on Earned Media” while I was researching this post. The article reports that up to 92 percent of consumers trusted word-of-mouth recommendations, while only 24 percent trusted online ads.  Then, like now, people used social media to share ideas and document experiences instead of making phone calls and writing letters but, then… the sharing is what matters because the sharing is what converts.

Eighty-one percent of consumers surveyed say their purchasing decisions have been influenced by social media, and about the same percentage of marketers (80 percent) who have used influencer marketing campaigns found them effective for driving engagement and awareness. Nearly half of U.S. adults (48 percent) say they have purchased a product after learning about it from a online influencer, according to YouGov’s Influencer Marketing Report.

A whopping 89 percent of agencies and brand marketers say influencer marketing can positively affect how people feel about your brand

That Ad Age article I referenced in the previous paragraph also says that a recommendation from a trusted friend was 50 times more likely to convert than other recommendations.

Fifty times.

At last tally, influencer marketing delivered an ROI of over $7 for ever $1 spent. That number jumps to $11.74 for beauty brands. And influencer marketing doesn’t just impact online engagement and sales. The Forbes Agency Council reports:

• When measured with loyalty card data, influencer content can drive sales and increase basket size.

• Influencer marketing directly impacts sales through redemptions for promotional offers.

• Using point of sale (POS) data, influencer marketing can drive true measurable sales lift.

• When measured with foot traffic data, influencer marketing increases engagement.

.

But folks can’t decide how to measure its effectiveness

If proving the effectiveness of influencer marketing has been tough for you, you’re not alone. Historically, determining and proving ROI has been a tough sale for adventurous marketers ready to put corporate dollars toward influencer marketing, only to have the CMO require stats and numbers.

I have a theory: Initially, I think most brands went into influencer marketing like it was another PPC campaign – tell our customers about our great deal, provide a link, and measure clicks against purchases.

That’s not exactly how influencer marketing works.

While PPC is more about transacting sales, influencer marketing has always been more focused on branding – boosting awareness, gaining followers, growing engagement, and the other things that eventually lead to sales, which brings me to my next point…

Earned Media Value

Influencer marketing is great at amplifying the intangible.

Neat idea, Stone. Now how do we make it tangible so we can measure it? One way is earned media value.

Earned media value (EMV) assigns an actual dollar value to the impact of word-of-mouth and media attention. The highest value Instagram influencers are generating millions of dollars in EMV for brands. In fact, influencer marketing is estimated to offer a return of $7.65 in earned media value for every $1 spent on campaigns.

For instance, on influencer platform is said to work with a formula of $5 per 1,000 followers an influencer has. But this formula isn’t an industry standard, which is why earned media value is such a controversial measurement of the success in this space.

Remember what I said about finishing high school to become a doctor? Yeah… that’s the rub. EMV isn’t a sufficient ROI if your campaign goals require followers to take some sort of action like engaging, clicking a link, redeeming a coupon, or visiting a website.

Still, EMV is a big deal because if the numbers are there, influencers and marketers only have to focus on compelling followers to act. According to Media Post, the top 20 brands created more than $650 million in earned media value from their 11,000 paid influencers. But these brands also got another 158K posts from unpaid influencers who have at least 15,000 followers.

Remember, the value of influencer marketing is being able to run highly targeted campaigns with the help of someone your target customer like and follow (i.e. listen to), and the goal is usually to get the audience to take at least one specific action.

In May, I published a post to LinkedIn about how it came to be that I actually saw Avengers: Infinity War when I hadn’t planned on rushing to the theatres to see it. Seeing the movie wasn’t the result of my love for Marvel, though I do LOVE Marvel movies. What drove me to see a movie that I wasn’t super-excited to see was the social media response to the film – the people in my network who saw it.

I could tell from their posts that many of them only saw the movie because they’d seen Black Panther. I saw posts like: “Worst superhero movie ever…” and “I’m devastated…” going through my Facebook feed opening weekend.

Instagram, Facebook and Twitter convinced me that something was terribly wrong in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That’s what actually moved me to take my family out to see the movie.

(I was devastated, by the way. My world was a little upside down for a day or two.)

Source: Imgur.com

Marvel’s Infinity War campaign was one of the best-performing EMV campaigns this year. The social media movement that got me to buy tickets to a movie I didn’t want to see (I couldn’t figure out what the damned thing was about from the previews!), created an EMV of $40.5 million, largely made up of organic content from folks like me who shared memes and wrote non-spoiler reviews of the movie using the #infinitywar and #guerrainfinita hashtags.

“More than 1.6 million Instagram posts have the #infinitywar hashtag. In the last 24 hours (between April 30th at 10PM and May 1 at 10PM), #infinitywar has shown up on Twitter more than 279K times, and the movie opened a week ago. That means someone on Twitter mentions the movie using that hashtag three times every second, or 11.6K times an hour.

Heck, I even refrained from posting any spoilers, because there were so many memes out there reminding moviegoers not to spoil it for others.”

Source: eMarketer

The hashtag #ThanosDemandsYourSilence currently has more than 83K posts on Instagram, and #infinitywar, more than 2.7 million… just on Instagram.

All of this… and only one percent of the content using the #infinitywar hashtag was paid content.

But UGC and earned media value aren’t the only metrics for determining the success of an influencer marketing campaign. UK and US brands and marketers also use things like number of online mentions, number of shares and press coverage generated as markers of success.

Reason #3 It’s Not Too Late: Brands Still Have a Hard Time Finding Legit Influencers

Separating the real influencers from the fake ones is one of the challenges marketers report having with launching effective influencer marketing campaigns. Buying followers is still very easy and it’s very cheap. But it’s misleading for brands and marketers, and without the proper tools to detect fraud, brands can end up losing time and money paying someone with fake followers to wield influence he or she doesn’t really have.

But brands have caught on. They are looking beyond vanity metrics when choosing influencer partners, but it takes some digging. I penned a post for Social Media Today here that identifies the five metrics you need to look for when evaluating influencers. They are:

• Organic follower growth – To ensure followers are real, engaged and offer the potential for you to garner future sales

• Content on all social platforms – To determine the verticals in which an influencer actually wields influence

• Audience demographics – To figure out where your two audiences overlap and market specifically to those people

• Brand affinity – To understand where your influencer and his / her followers actually show

• Product analysis – To get a better idea of how much they spend when they shop

These signals – not follower count – are the ones that matter.

THOSE CGI INFLUENCERS, THOUGH

Another development we’re watching closely in this space is the growing number of CGI influencers like Lil Miquela and Shudu (whose IG bio pegs her “The world’s first digital supermodel”). They’re both works of art… technically, they are  computer-generated imagery or #3Dart. But you get my point.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl_6AI6lSkb/?taken-by=lilmiquela

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdstrqGlsL8/?taken-by=shudu.gram

This area gets a little sticky, because while Lil Miquela has already been tapped by Prada, the FTC laws governing transparency in endorsement marketing are yet undefined when it comes to digital art promoting actual products. And despite the 1.3 million+ accounts following Lil Miquela, it remains to be seen whether her creators can convert followers’ fascination with “hyper humanism” into a CTA that delivers an ROI.

Reason #4 It’s Not Too Late: Fakers Are Losing Ground

In June, Unilever CMO Keith Weed’s very public announcement (made at Cannes) that the company would stop working with influencers who use fake followers was a big deal in the world of digital media marketing. It officially marked the end of an era.

We’ve been preaching for years about the need for brands to vet influencers… beyond follower counts and number of Likes. The reason being, both followers…

and Likes…

can be bought for a few bucks.

No doubt big brands like Procter & Gamble and Unilever have already wasted lots of money on fake influencers with inflated follower and engagement counts. So… brands are starting to call BS.

But I wouldn’t lob all the blame onto influencers.

Historically, follower counts and number of Likes have been the deciding factors for brands in whether they will work with influencers. So, it makes sense that savvy users looking to cash in on the influencer marketing carze would buy followers to boost their follower counts.

But I think both brands and influencers missed a key piece of the influencer marketing puzzle – influence springs up from trust, and bots can’t trust.

So, for the last few years, influencer marketing really has been sort of an anything-goes, see-if-it-sticks marketing trend for the large majority of brands, with just a few of them successfully implementing social proof techniques and marketing strategies that can deliver consistent and specific returns.

Last month, the media went crazy when Twitter began indiscriminately purging fake and locked accounts from the platform. Reuters reported that Twitter got rid of 70 million accounts during the sweep, and dropped follower numbers for everybody from Joe Blow across the street to heads of state.

so, Are brands ditching influencer marketing?

Forty-one percent of agencies and brand marketers would say influencer fraud is holding back the growth of influencer marketing. But are they ready to ditch it as a marketing channel? No way. The returns are too good to ditch it. What they are doing is bringing influencer marketing in-house by building teams to manage campaigns directly, or hire an intermediary who can work with influencer marketing agencies or influencer platforms like The Shelf to hammer out strategies and roll out campaigns. Ultimately, the goal for brands is to maintain better control over campaigns, and to build ongoing relationships with social influencers.

Reason #5 It’s Not Too Late: Influencers As a Whole Are Being Held Accountable

Another clear sign that influencer marketing is maturing is the fact that influencers are being held to business standards more often. There’s a lot more contractual talk in the blogosphere being included in posts about how to run influencer campaigns. Agencies are beefing up their contracts with influencers to include more details that will help ensure brands and influencers know what to expect from one another, what is expected of them, and when to deliver it. More detailed contracts mean influencers have very little opportunity to miss milestones without risking their contract (and reputations).

There’s also public outcry when influencers step on toes. People recognize that social media influencers can sway people’s thinking, and brands recognize that what an influencer or content creator says and does in the public eye can shape the way people perceive their brands.

I don’t want to spend too much time naming specific influencers who lost contracts because of something they said or did. Just do your own research.

Heck, just last week Apple, YouTube and Facebook removed the accounts of a popular content creator because enough people complained that his content crossed the line into hate speech and fake news. I will also tell you that just this morning, I was reading a post about advertisers boycotting YouTube again this year over lingering brand safety concerns. Brands feel YouTube just isn’t doing enough to ensure their ads don’t run on channels that promote hateful, controversial, violent, or explicit content.

If advertisers are foregoing the world’s second largest search engine as an advertising partner because doing so many weaken the integrity of the brand, you can see how an influencer can be dropped by making insensitive comments about her maid, or filming within view of the site of a suicide, or making racially insensitive remarks on social media.

The thing to watch for here, however, is how the influencer aligns with the brand. Here’s what I mean.

According to Media Post, Fashion Nova is KILLING IT on social media. With $125 million in paid and organic EMV this year alone, Fashion Nova is the top-performing brand on Instagram. This win is credited in large part to their long-standing partnership with chart-topping rapper Cardi B.

Now, transparency… I’m more of a Kem / John Mayer / Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings kinda girl. So, I actually don’t know any of the words to “Bodak Yellow”.

Like, none.

But folks love Cardi B, and her public persona seems to be right in line with large segments of Fashion Nova’s 12 million+ Instagram audience. In fact, according to InfluencerDB, each one of Cardi B.’s Instagram posts, delivers $128,198 of EMV to the fast fashion site. And because her relationship with Fashion Nova precedes her fame, her posts ring authentic.

I grabbed a couple of screenshots to show you how valuable the right influencer can be to a brand’s campaign. The picture below, I grabbed from Fashion Nova’s  Instagram feed. As of this writing, it’s 12 days old. With 92.3K Likes, 630 Comments and 915K video views the engagement for this post is right around eight percent (which is phenomenal for an account with 12 million followers).

Source: Fashion Nova’s Instagram feed

Now, let’s look at the same video from Cardi B’s Instagram feed. She posted this to her audience of 30.3 million. It has two million Likes, 22.1K Comments, and nearly 13.2  million video views. In 12 days.

And engagement on this post over 50 percent.

As smart and pretty as she is, as well-liked as she is, and as much engagement as she gets, she would be a terrible fit for lots of other brands. But the Fashion Nova – Cardi B. partnership is gold.

I blurred the feeds to keep the trash-talk out of view.

Reason #6 It’s Not Too Late: Governments Are Formulating Laws to Formalize and Legitimize This Space

It’s been pretty big news of late that governing bodies have stepped in to ensure what happens online adheres pretty closely to what’s allowed offline. This year, Facebook’s had to answer for data sharing and privacy violations on the world’s largest social media platform.

The EU implemented the General Data Protection Regulation to ensure brands and marketers aren’t hoarding and misusing the personal data of EU citizens that they may collect from social media, websites, and marketing funnels.

The FTC has been at work creating more comprehensive and easy-to-understand Endorsement Guides for running an influencer business and doing business with influencers. It’s far easier to understand than previous guides released by the FTC, and outlines clearly that if there is a material connection or pre-existing personal relationship (like friend or relative) between an influencer and an advertiser, “that connection should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed…”

India is making sure Indian influencers adhere to cultural decency laws.

And the UAE now requires local social media influencers to be licensed as content publishers, or to join licensed influencer marketing agencies in the UAE. If an influencer doesn’t do one or the other, he or she can no longer accept any kind of payment to promote products.

All steps toward standardizing a cottage industry (it’s totally a cottage industry) that’s digging in its heels.

Recap and Wrap-Up

So, there it is. Five signals that I believe are evidece the influencer marketing space is evolving and maturing, but not disappearing.

Is it too late for you to become an influencer? Nah. The real question is do you have the behaviors and skill set to build a strong, profitable digital marketing business ethically, because that’s what influencers actually are – digital marketers.

If you’re ready to become an influencer, we have several really good posts to help you forge your first careful steps. There are resources on the market, too like Brittany Hennessey’s book #Influencer that are written specifically for bloggers who want to become influencers. I haven’t read the book yet, but I will.

I wish you well out there.

By now, you may have heard the news. Coach, Inc. has officially changed its name to Tapestry, Inc. Or, as an almost brutal New York Times headline read, “Coach, Inc. is Dead. Long Live Tapestry, Inc.”

Should that hurt? Because surprisingly, it sort of hurts.

And that’s because Coach has endeared itself to us as the go-to brand for high-end leather handbags (we do love our handbags) that are both beautiful and affordable. That’s how Coach earned the designation of being one of the most well-known and trusted “affordable-luxury” brands in the world.

An In-Depth Look At Coach’s Last Holiday Influencer Marketing Campaign

But since its humble Manhattan beginnings as a purse company 76 years ago, the company formerly known as Coach, Inc. has made a deliberate shift from being a fashion company to being a multi-entity holding company for other affordable-luxury brands.

In recent years, the company bought shoemaker Stuart Weitzman, then followed-up that acquisition two years later with the $2.4 billion purchase of Kate Spade in the Spring of 2017.

Coach, Inc. was quietly growing to become what CEO Victor Luis says will be the first New York Fashion Group –  the first multi-brand luxury group of fashion companies made right here in America.

Nevertheless, in this post, we’re going to take an in-depth look at Coach, Inc.’s last holiday influencer marketing campaign.

The Market That Set Up Last Year’s Campaign

Truth bomb: I never thought of Coach as anything less than a relatively classy high-end brand. HOWEVER, when I conducted my impromptu, non-scientific survey of a few Millennials, they quickly informed me Coach went out of style. Years ago.

Who knew? Coach knew.

Not only was the brand grappling with the continual task of staying on top of customer trends, but it also had the same issues as just about every other brick-and-mortar retailer and luxury fashion brand – they needed to learn how to navigate a fashion market that was becoming increasingly digital.

Digital competitors with savvy founders and low overhead, coupled with the explosive growth of Amazon and the e-comm market meant Coach and other luxury brands (including Michael Kors and Fendi) were suddenly hit with decreasing in-store sales that were the direct result of people’s growing affinity for shopping online.

Add to that, the fact that the company seemed to have a hard time connecting with Millennials who may have seen the legacy brand as “Mom Fashion.”

And that’s where this post comes in.

Let’s Start with Their Campaign Goals

A year ago, Coach’s (@Coach) holiday influencer marketing efforts included several Instagram campaigns that ran concurrently or consecutively (with noticeable overlap) between September 2016 and January 2017.

As far as execution, the campaigns were very similar. Interchangeable. They were seamless and unending, like one big Coach campaign. We were able to differentiate one campaign from another largely by the hashtags used in sponsored posts.

We found more than 100 sponsored posts from micro influencers in North America, Europe, and Asia. Each of the sponsored posts we cataloged used at least one of these six primary branded hashtags:

#CoachFall2016   //   #RexytheCoachDino   //   #CoachHoliday   //   #TimeForCoach   //   #CoachxPacMan   //   #Coach75

Now, there were more Coach-branded hashtags being used, but the ones listed above were the hashtags we saw most often as part of Coach’s paid posts.

There were also micro influencers using the branded hashtags in unsponsored posts. In fact, we saw as many unpaid branded posts as we saw paid posts.

While the hashtags and products being promoted differed from post to post and influencer to influencer, the end game remained universal across campaigns: Boosting brand awareness and engagement amongst Millennials and Gen Z.

After all, that’s the Holy Grail of marketing.

The Competition Is Fierce

Coach is battling more than just a handful of other luxury brands like Michael Kors (its primary competitor) to get the attention of Millennials and Gen Zers (the oldest of whom are already in college). Millennials and Gen Zers have their attention elsewhere. The are enamored with old school sports brands (like Adidas and Puma). They are partial to fashion brands like H&M, Forever21, and ASOS. And they are shopping online from mobile devices at least weekly (and most Millennials shop daily from their phones).

Add to that the fact that Millennials are less brand-loyal than previous generations (and even less for Gen Z, who has been called “brand-wary”) and you start getting an idea of why Coach has been working so hard to rebrand itself with marketing efforts that specifically court Millennials and younger.

Below is a screenshot of the front page of the Coach.com website in mid-October 2017, a day after the Tapestry, Inc. announcement.

Coach’s Holiday Influencer Campaign Strategy Pre-Tapestry

Coach painted with a broad stroke during last year’s holiday campaign. The underlying goal in each encounter between the brand and the influencer’s audience seemed to be focused on bringing awareness. Coach made a very deliberate attempt to always be in front of you, at least within the social media ecosystem.

Here are the three tactics they used to do it.

#1 Coach Put Multiple Branded Hashtags in Heavy Rotation

Thousands of paid and unpaid posts showed up on Instagram in the last quarter of 2016 using the branded hashtags listed above. But three out of six of the primary branded hashtags Coach used in last year’s campaign have nothing to do with a specific Coach product.

Rather, the hashtags were used to keep Coach top-of-mind during the holiday season. Let’s take another gander at this creative(?) list:

#Coach75
(used in 5,909 posts to date)
THE most popular hashtag, it was used to promote Coach’s 75th anniversary shindig.

#CoachFall2016
(5,316 posts to date)
Used to promote Coach’s fall collection, this hashtag was put to use ahead of the holiday season, but it lingered on social through the end of the year.

#RexytheCoachDino
(4,201 posts to date)
Coach used the #RexytheCoachDino hashtag to promote its mischievous and seemingly ever-present dinosaur mascot, Rexy.

#CoachHoliday
(2,846 posts to date)
This was the company’s official hashtag for the holiday season.

#TimeForCoach
(1,119 posts to date)
Used in ads to promote Coach timepieces. We saw the #TimeforCoach hashtag often, and almost exclusively in sponsored posts.

#CoachxPacMan
(441 posts to date)
We saw this post whenever an influencer was promoting one of the company’s stylish backpacks.

The hashtags caught on. Not only did influencer partners use the hashtags in their posts, but people who visited Coach stores, who bought Coach products, and even those who simply wanted to be associated with the brand used Coach’s branded hashtags in droves across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

#2 Coach Tapped Different Influencers to Target Different Audience Segments

My original goal with this post was to focus on how Coach leveraged creative micro influencers, because that’s usually what you stumble across when cruising Insty. What we found, however, is that there were far more influencers being paid for content than expected. The company used a wide range of Instagram influencers, which includes both micro influencers and major influencers. A strategy that we’ve seen a lot of brands deploying these days. Typically it’s a two prong approach : random everyday people with an average of 50-200 likes per photo… paired with huge influencers who are hit or miss in metrics. This is somewhat flawed strategy, but we’ll save that for another day… when we write about the 7 key mistakes brands make with their influencer marketing.

Perhaps the most important tactic Coach used in its mission to raise brand awareness was leveraging different types of influencers who created different types of content for audiences of drastically different sizes.

EXAMPLE 1 : A Day in the Life of The Girl from Las Vegas
The Girl from Las Vegas (@Amandapamblanco) creates lifestyle content. Her typical posts include dozens of themes though she often displays pics of her just living life. I’ve seen photos of her visiting national landmarks, videos of her creating beauty tutorials, photos of eye-catching meals, and just the everyday candid shot of her and friends.

For Coach’s holiday campaign, The Girl from Las Vegas published a sponsored post to her Instagram page on Christmas Day that saw 10% engagement. (10% engagement is well above the average which stands around 2%, however she’s on the lower end of the micro-influencer scale, which typically leads to a much higher engagement ratio just due to the smaller size of the influencer.) The post, which was day-in-the-life content, featured her wearing a burgundy cross-body Coach saddle bag while checking her phone.

Nothing fancy. No jet-setting or walking down the middle of a busy New York street between gridlocked taxis. In fact, there’s a minivan in the background of this pic just parked in a driveway.

Everyday life.

The Girl from Las Vegas used two popular hashtags: #Coach75 and #CoachHoliday. The post has 227 Likes.

But Coach didn’t just stick to likable influencers with modest followings and high engagement who were documenting their lives in pictures with their Coach handbags in tow. Coach partnered with influencers who had hundreds of thousands of followers for their year-end campaigns.

EXAMPLE 2 : The Glamorous Life of a West Hollywood Vixen
One of the more popular sponsored posts came from Lisa Dengler (@lisadengler). Lisa has around 138K followers.

Lisa’s post of her and Rexy got more than 2400 Likes (nearly 2% engagement). And you can see she used the corresponding hashtag for #RexyTheCoachDino.

In stark contrast to the posts from The Girl from Las Vegas, Lisa’s posts look like they were pulled from the pages of Vogue Magazine. Nothing looks day-in-the-life. Every shot looks planned, posed, and curated.

If you look, you can probably see the differences between the two types of content these influencers create just by looking at the two screen shots above.

The Girl from Las Vegas is showing me that her small saddle bag is the perfect accessory for her day of running errands and living life. Cool. I have a bag like that myself, but it’s bigger. The saddle bag could probably save my aching back on those days when I don’t have much to tote along. I can relate.

Lisa is high-fashion (note the Rexy the Dino shirt). Her photos are aspirational and intriguing. She’s the girl that we all strive to be, not necessarily the one that we find ourselves relating to.

#3 Coach Cross-Promoted Between Social Platforms, EComm, and Physical Locations

The third tactic Coach used in their influencer marketing campaign last year was promoting the brand offline and online, across multiple platforms.

YouTube Videos Provided the Framework by Which to Understand Online Chatter
One of the fastest ways to make sense of Instagram posts and hashtags was to check Coach’s YouTube channel for news of upcoming products and events. The appearance of Rexy on Instagram coincided with the launch of the Fifth Avenue Coach store and the aforementioned 12-foot Rexy that lived inside that store.

YouTube is also how I found out about the Coach perfume. Coach pegged Chloe Grace Moretz and James Franco to promote Coach’s fragrance. Moretz filmed multiple videos promoting Coach and the new fragrance.

The shot above is of Chloë Grace Moretz from the video Introducing #CoachTheFragrance. The 30-second video has 165K YouTube views.

#CoachTheFragrance, another pretty creative hashtag, became a popular one with 1,670 posts to date. Most of the posts were unsponsored, so we left that hashtag off our list.

Twitter
Instagram users have the option to publish their Instagram posts to Twitter and Facebook at the same time they publish them to Instagram. And a considerable number of Instagrammers have done just that.

However, Coach ran a separate campaign, specifically for Twitter. Twitter is a noisy place right now, and considered oversaturated by many marketers, but the platform caters to adults 18 to 29 years of age (older Gen Z, younger Millennials). That demo falls squarely within Coach’s target audience.

Of course, the issue with marketing on a noisy platform is reach. Coach has 673K Twitter followers and their posts average fewer than 100 Likes each. There are so many users publishing to Twitter, most people will miss more than 70% of the content goes through their feed.

The more marketers using a platform, the less reach brands have UNLESS they use influencers. Coach increases its reach exponentially by using influencers. In which case they’re still not going to see much in terms of returns, but it will most likely yield more than when they post to their own feed.

This recent tweet from Coach (below on the right) got 5 comments, 13 retweets, and 98 Likes. Notice the obvious use of Millennials and Gen Zers.

In contrast, the tweet above and on the left from Lilly Singh while sporting a red Coach satchel got 482 comments, 2K retweets (including one from Coach), and 16K Likes.

Lilly Singh is huge. And she’s not really what I would consider a dead-ringer in terms of the ideal Coach carrier… but she’s hilarious. And when Selina Gomez gives you a gift… that shit deserves to get tweeted.

Interestingly, the hashtag #CoachHoliday was almost exclusively used by Tapestry, formerly Coach, Inc. on Instagram. But on Twitter, it was a different story. That hashtag was just as likely to be on a post about traveling for the holidays using Coach bus company as it was to be about Coach, Inc., the luxury brand.

Six Campaigns, One Goal

If Coach’s one definite holiday campaign goal was to appeal to Millennials and Gen Z, the only challenge it faces is reinventing itself for young adults, a theme that was present throughout every influencer campaign. Let’s take a more in-depth look at the top three campaigns, starting with Rexy the Coach Dino.

Campaign: #RexyTheCoachDino

The Story of #RexyTheCoachDino
Tapestry’s adorable mascot is Rexy the Coach Dino (officially known as #RexyTheCoachDino). In addition to appearing in animated features and cropping up all over social media last year, Rexy was made into a product line last year that included embroidered sweatshirts (like the one Lisa Dengler wore), clutches, coin purses, Rexy bag charms, keychains, and even a Coach Apple Watch.

My favorite, by a longshot, is the Rexy coin case, featured above.

You may have noticed that adorable little dinosaur isn’t something you can just pick up at the local closeout store. Rexy’s affordable-luxury accessories start at $85 for the bag charms.

The Life-Sized #RexyTheCoachDino
The brand staged a 12-foot model to promote the launch of Coach House, Fifth Avenue last fall.

The dinosaur sculpture was produced by Billie Achilleos and Setsquare Staging Ltd. then covered in leather swatches and vintage Coach handbags. Rexy stood on the showroom floor of Coach’s Fifth Avenue store.

The above shot is from their YouTube video that documents the entire process.

A Holiday Film Starring #RexyTheCoachDino
#RexyTheCoachDino was also the star of a one-minute holiday film published just two days before Coach’s 75th Anniversary celebration.

In the short video, one mischievous Rexy, standing in a line with the other leather toy models of the Coach dinosaur, comes to life then proceeds to knock over his inanimate compadres before setting out on an after-hours adventure in the streets of New York. The video currently has more than 2.9 million views.

#RexyTheCoachDino, Instagram Star
Leather models of #RexyTheCoachDino also found their way into numerous social media posts. By far, some of the most engaging pieces of branded content produced by Coach partners last year included cameos by #RexyTheCoachDino, like this post (not marked sponsored, although I have my doubts that that’s the case) from @Aniab.

In this sponsored post from @ncwong for #CoachSingapore, #RexyTheCoachDino just sort of hangs out with the influencer. She looks unimpressed and it works.

With approximately 63,000 followers, Ncwong is one influencer who has a knack for making the mundane gorgeous. This post got 2,788 Likes.

Campaign: #CoachHoliday

The ubiquitous #CoachHoliday hashtag represented all things Coach during last year’s campaign. Most influencers appended it to their sponsored (and unsponsored) posts and used the #CoachHoliday hashtag in conjunction with other branded hashtags.

This post above from fashion blogger Ky Jade (@Kysochic) performed exceptionally well… and we don’t even know what’s in the package! During the holidays, sometimes the thrill is just in getting the a gift in the first place.

And below, while a creative departure from the typical fashion-focused promotional posts created by influencers, this eye-catching post from Floral Watercolor Workshop (@Nataliestudio) didn’t perform particularly well. But it’s cute. #RexyTheCoachDino is shown in front of a miniature Christmas tree being decorated with DIY ornaments painted with watercolors.

The influencer who created this particular post usually averages well over 600 Likes per post. Best guess: Her audience wasn’t impressed by the at-mention of Coach. The good news is this isn’t a sponsored post, according to her disclosure-less caption, although, again, I sort of have my doubts. We encourage brands to think outside of the box when targeting influencers. I don’t think this particular influencer was a stretch, I think her post just didn’t have the proper guidance (and this claim is assuming that it was in fact sponsored). Influencers must stay true to their own voice and audience otherwise you’ll get posts like this that perform less than average by a factor of 3X.

Campaign: #Coach75

Ahead of its 75th anniversary celebration, Coach recruited several micro influencers to help spread the word about the brand’s achievements. The #Coach75 hashtag was used alongside #CoachHoliday as a secondary tag in sponsored posts. That is, until the day before and day of their big anniversary celebration on December 9th of last year.

In fact, Coach arranged several major events to occur within a few days of each other in the weeks leading up to the 75th anniversary fashion show.

Coach released its fragrance in September.

After that, the 20,000-foot Fifth Avenue store opened the week before Thanksgiving to much press and fanfare.

In the days following the launch of the store, Coach released the Rexy product line (which is one reason the #RexyTheCoachDino tag often appeared with #Coach75.

Then on December 9th, Coach held its75th anniversary fashion show and Instagram was aflutter with pics from the show.

One post that performed particularly well came from Alexis?? Aka DIVA (@aalexisjae) who post a picture of herself at the fashion show on the night of the event captioned with just the hashtag #Coach75.

The post received more than 5K Likes from her audience of 79.3K – fantastic engagement on that post. While Alexis didn’t identify her picture as a sponsored post, she has an amazing ability to get high engagement numbers on her post. To give you some perspective, get 2% of your followers to Like a post is about average.

Alexis averages 8.5% engagement on everything she creates. The above post topped 6.7% engagement.

Farewell, Coach

As we bid farewell to the Coach we knew and welcome Victor Luis’ vision for Tapestry, I can’t help but think how my perception of the brand has shifted a bit since I first started researching this post. Tapestry, Inc. has some cool ideas about how to revolutionize high-end fashion, which includes the customization workshop that’s now onsite at the company’s Fifth Avenue location.

The once over-distributed brand that ended up with leather handbags hanging on racks in the purse section of the local closeout department store is fighting hard to once again position itself as the foremost American-made affordable-luxury brand.

And the first order of business is using social to get and keep the attention of Millennials and Gen Zers.

Anywho… just to wrap up. We love digging into the inner workings of marketing campaigns. The best campaigns are layered and complex, with the ability to touch people in ways that other brands strive for. We specialize in the complex. And we’re all a bit OCD. We’d love to help you with your next campaign. And I can promise that your socks will be knocked off.