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SUMMARY: We are serious folks here at
MarketingSherpa. We’ve published many case studies
about data analysis, marketing technologies, messaging methodologies, and A/B
testing. But we still realize that sometimes
you need to throw some fun, creative ideas into the mix to help customers
understand your unique message. So to spark your next creative idea,
read on to see how these fun campaigns impacted marketing opt-in rates,
impressions, and annual profit. |
by Daniel Burstein, Senior
Director, Content & Marketing, MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute May
24, 2021
This article was originally published
in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.
“If you have something unique — even a
single dimension of exclusivity — that’s meaningful and significant to the customer,
you help them conclude they can’t get this anywhere else,” said Flint
McGlaughlin in The Power of Perceived Value: Discover how a well-marketed
banana & roll of tape produced a windfall.
While MarketingSherpa, sister
publication MarketingExperiments, and parent organization MECLABS Institute are
known for serious, data-driven marketing methodologies and case studies,
McGlaughlin makes his point in the video with banana taped to a whiteboard.
In other words, he injects fun into the
presentation to get his point across.
It brings up a valuable lesson – even
the most hard-nosed, data-obsessed A/B testing marketer shouldn’t overlook the
role of fun in his or her campaigns.
To inspire your next fun idea, in this
article we bring you three digital marketing campaigns that found fun, creative
ways to demonstrate unique elements of their brands’ value.
First, Chipotle finds a way to
replicate it’s unique in-store Boorito promo through a digital campaign during
COVID-19. Next, an online hairstyle shop stands out from the crowd of similar
competitors by launching a YouTube channel complete with its own storefront
salon studio. And finally, an online fashion retailer leans into its unique
collaboration with rapper Quavo by producing a custom mobile game.
Quick Case Study
#1: Chipotle turns in-store tradition into digital campaign due to COVID-19,
generates 1 billion impressions
Chipotle Mexican Grill has a 20-year-old
Halloween tradition called Boorito, where anyone in costume can come into a
restaurant and get a free burrito. However, COVID-19 changed all that. So the
team designed an email and mobile campaign to replicate the traditional
in-store Boorito.
With virtual trick-or-treating as
inspiration, the team designed an online experience to distribute 500,000 BOGO
(buy one, get one free) promo codes to users across digital communication
channels, including email, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, to be redeemed on
10/31.
The campaign was designed to seamlessly
integrate email with SMS (short messaging service, more commonly known as text
messages), and also include social channels. The fast casual restaurant created
a text prompt baked into the email, which showed the terms of engagement and
allowed customers to claim the offer between October 29th and
October 31st, 2020 with a simple tap-to-text user interface.
This action automatically pre-populated
the message app on a customer’s phone with the short code and keyword so
customers could easily claim the offer and go directly into the purchase cycle
via their phones on Halloween.
Creative Sample #1: Mobile version of
email for Chipotle Boorito digital campaign
The “tap to text” call-to-action only
showed up on mobile devices. If on desktop, the email showed a “learn more”
button which led to a landing page with the rules. Customers could then change
devices from desktop to mobile to participate if they chose to.
“By utilizing time-based targeting, the
Chipotle team was able to simply swap out messages after the offer ran out,”
said Brooke Schommer, Principal Customer Success Manager, Liveclicker (Chipotle’s
real-time email marketing vendor). After each day’s codes were depleted leading
up to Halloween, Chipotle dynamically presented a hero image directing fans to
Chipotle’s social media platforms to find newly available codes, like a virtual
trick-or-treat.
Creative Sample #2: Mobile version of
email for Chitpotle Boorito digital campaign after promo codes were depleted,
encouraging customers to visit social media to find more
The team also brought Boorito to TikTok
as part of a concurrent contest that encouraged customers to post Halloween
costume pictures from past years and show how they celebrated the holiday for
the chance to win free burritos for a year.
As Boorito had always been an in-person
event with no cap, Chipotle did not have previous benchmarks for digital offers
at this scale and was looking at overall participation as an indicator of
success.
Through the course of the Boorito campaign,
the promo codes were 100% distributed to excited fans..
The bank of promo codes allotted
specifically for email customers were all claimed within hours, despite the
nature of the targeted audience – rather than messaging the entire database,
Chipotle decided to target the email campaign to focus only on lapsed and
“at-risk” Chipotle customers. Such strong email engagement showed huge
potential re-engagement opportunities for the “at-risk” email population.
Halloween day redemptions of the BOGO
codes were strong, and the campaign was considered a success.
“Fans loved that Boorito was gamified.
This fresh take on one of our most beloved campaigns created a sense of urgency
that made our content more shareable across the digital and social channels today’s
customers use most. With a seamless integration between mobile and email
interactions, our marketing team saw just how well omnichannel offers can drive
purchases when they work together. We garnered one billion impressions over the
course of the campaign, proving that going big across all digital channels
certainly gets the word out and gets people talking,” said Chelsea Meissner,
Targeted Marketing Manager, Chipotle Mexican Grill.
Quick Case Study
#2: Online hairstyle shop grows to $1.6 million in annual profits by leveraging
YouTube
In 2009, twin brothers Emil and Rasmus
Vilain Albrechtsen launched an online shop in Denmark selling hairstyle
products.
“Three months after we opened our shop,
we had some sales, but we also realized that we did not differentiate ourselves
from other online shops. We had to switch to a more creative approach. Rasmus
created a video using his MacBook webcam. The recording was mirrored, the sound
was bad, but it was authentic. We launched Slikhaar TV on YouTube and placed the
video there. We got a lot of free views from YouTube at that time and soon we
started to see international comments,” said Emil Vilain Albrechtsen, CEO and
co-founder, Slikhaarshop.
That was the first step in Slikhaar
TV's journey to what today includes more than 350 million video views and 2.1
million subscribers. It took 10 to 20 videos for the brothers to see that the
videos really resonated.
To Emil and Rasmus, YouTube was not
only a media channel, but also a search engine, so in the early years they
focused on how-to videos. They rented a store on the main pedestrian street in
Aarhus, Denmark’s second-biggest city, transforming the store into a hair salon
and an office. That gave them the perfect stage for content production, plus an
additional revenue stream from hairdressing. They hired talented hairdressers
who would not only cut customers’ hair, but also be part of new video content.
The brothers prioritized content production over cutting hair and called the
salon Slikhaar Studio.
From here, the content production
evolved, and the audience became a growing part of the process. Emil and Rasmus
increasingly included the community, asking that viewers tell them what
subjects they’d like to see addressed. The feedback gave them ideas for their
editorial plan. Armed with audience suggestions, they built a list of the most
wanted haircuts, found a hair model, and arranged a cut with one of the
hairdressers at the studio.
“We look at user feedback when planning
our videos, but we are also looking at things like trending topics and the
quality of our thumbnails. When we publish a ‘Cristiano Ronaldo Haircut’ video,
we are up against a lot of competition. The algorithm on YouTube will look at
the click rate for each of the videos, among many other details. The content
game of today is more about knowing the algorithm and finding out what works,
so we spend a lot of time analyzing and experimenting,” Emil said.
"Most marketers fail because they
diversify too quickly. Slikhaar was successful because they focused on becoming
indispensable with their YouTube channel and built a loyal audience there. Only
when they had a large enough audience (over years and years) did they diversify
to other platforms," said Joe Pulizzi, author, Content Inc. (Pulizzi brought this case
study to MarketingSherpa). It wasn’t until 2014, when Facebook really started
to focus on videos, that Facebook got Slikhaar’s full attention. Today the
company has 2.3 million fans on Facebook and has diversified to Instagram.
“Evolving isn’t easy. The social media
landscape keeps changing. Keeping up with it requires an experimental approach
where you try out new formats while continuing to develop what you are good
at,” Pulizzi said.
For example, Slikhaar could have done
more on TikTok, but the brothers believe Instagram works better for their
company. Instagram Stories and Snapchat are parts of the beauty company’s
marketing mix. So is email marketing, which it primarily uses for staying in
touch with customers.
When Slikhaar TV’s audience exceeded
100,000 subscribers, the brothers were working with various hair care brands to
expand their business. Their videos helped them increase demand, and they had
established good reseller deals with most brands. But after having a fallout
with a major brand that had been featured in a lot of videos, they decided to
find a local producer and build their own hairstyle brand – By Vilain.
The first product was ready for sale in
the online shop nine months later. That had a big impact on the business.
Rather than driving demand for hundreds of brands and getting a small margin
when someone made a purchase at slikhaarshop.com, subscribers would now primarily
buy the brothers’ own products. In May 2013, the first By Vilain products went
live, and online sales (and profits) skyrocketed.
The product assortment now includes 10
different hair styling products and 7 hair tools. On special occasions, the brothers
launch limited editions with special fragrances and colors.
The limited editions also work well for
e-commerce events like Black Friday. Instead of offering a huge discount and
devaluing the brand, Slikhaar introduces a limited edition on Black Friday.
Subscribers have a one-time chance to buy the limited edition.
“Today the company is focusing on a few
key markets, including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Vietnam, and
Denmark, as well as Amazon, whose unique approach is like entering another
country,” Pulizzi said.
Overall, the business is going well and
has been profitable since 2013. In some of the best years it had an annual
profit of more than $1.6 million. Slikhaar currently has 11 employees.
“Most important of all, the brothers
and their team are having a good time,” Pulizzi said.
“We keep going on as long as we are
having fun. We have no exit plans at this stage. Personally, I do not find
motivation in exiting, and I have everything I need, including a Lamborghini in
the garage,” Emil said.
Quick Case Study
#3: Game nets 60% marketing opt-in rate for online fashion retailer
In 2020, online retailer boohooMAN launch
a second collaborative clothing collection with rapper Quavo. “When I met the
team they were young and represented the culture so I thought, ok, we can
collaborate and do something special. I’m happy for it to come around again.
This time it’s better!" Quavo said.
To promote the fashion line, the
company tried to tap into the culture as well by creating its first-ever video
game – Go All the Way – which could be played on the boohooMAN app on iOS and
Android devices.
Creative Sample #3: Video game
promoting clothing collaboration between fashion company boohooMAN and rapper
Quavo
“For us it’s about being innovative and
giving narrative to our consumer demands – the game does just that!” said Samir
Kamani, Chief Executive, boohooMAN.
The game used an ’endless runner’
format. Players control Quavo’s character, running over the rooftops of Los
Angeles collecting coins and items from the boohooMAN x Quavo collection.
Scoring points allowed players to unlock promotions and prizes including a
chance to win a T-shirt signed by Quavo himself.
Creative Sample #4: Video game
promoting clothing collaboration between fashion company boohooMAN and rapper
Quavo
“We’ve been working on gaming for a
while and now seemed the perfect time to release whilst people are at home in
need of entertainment,” said Victoria Pearson, E-Commerce Manager, boohooMan.
“It was also important to release the
right quality of game that our users get value from and enjoy. Teaming up with
Quavo was the perfect fit,” she said.
Tim Cooper, Director, Peek
& Poke (boohooMAN’s game developer), explained: “It’s
enabled them to give their audience a little entertainment and a bit of fun
during these challenging times.”
The game has an overall engagement time
of 11 minutes per player and a 60% marketing opt-in rate.
“Brands are really starting to pay
attention to the value of games in engaging and entertaining audiences. As we
come to understand the wide player demographic, the old stereotypes around
games being a male-dominated pastime are being debunked. According to a recent
study by Savanta, 86% of people aged 16-69 have played computer or mobile games
and 54% play on most days, while 50% of gamers are women. It’s safe to say that
a lot of people are playing games, and done well they can help brands connect
with their audience, as well as deliver engagement, loyalty, and ROI,” said
Cari Kirby, Marketing Manager, Peek & Poke.
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