Bold. Edgy. Boundary breaking.
When we were approached by the forward-thinking brand Nouveau Eyewear to market a new line of designer frames, we knew we’d need to create a campaign that embodied those words—a campaign that suited the rebel spirit of True Religion, Nouveau’s brand partner.
Thanks to our proprietary research on the connected consumer, we were armed and ready.
Want to peek behind the curtain? Here’s how we created a winning campaign that brought together diverse influencers, a strong social push, and outstanding creative to boost True Religion’s eyewear launch into the stratosphere.
What we knew
When we started coming up with the concept for the #BeingSeen campaign, we knew a few things for certain.
- Our campaign had to appeal strongly to Millennials and Gen Z-ers.
- It had to include a social good element.
- It had to be powerful enough to persuade potential customers to purchase a higher-end item—True Religion eyewear frames retail for about $100—at a price-conscious outlet—Walmart. (This was because the frames were being sold exclusively at Walmart Vision Centers.)
With this information in mind, we started drafting concept ideas.
The winning concept: #BeingSeen
We started with point #1: Appealing to connected consumers (Millennials and Gen Z-ers are by definition connected consumers, although members of other generations fall into this category as well).
Because we conducted interviews with many of them, we knew that connected consumers place massive value on authenticity and individuality.
This matched True Religion’s brand identity perfectly. True Religion, which is known primarily for its denim, features models of diverse ethnicities and looks and places those models in edgy, urban-inspired environments.
We then started brainstorming ideas that drew on the brand’s commitment to diverse representation and authenticity, as well as (naturally) the product itself.
The winner? #BeingSeen.
We would create a campaign around the idea of being seen for one’s true, authentic self, while tying in True Religion’s frames as an opportunity for self-expression.
The campaign was built around the hashtag #BeingSeen, and we would enlist the help of influencers to encourage connected consumers to share their authentic selves with the world by answering the question, “What does #BeingSeen mean to you?”
Now it was time to find the right influencers!
Diverse, stylish, and individualistic: the recipe for a perfect True Religion eyewear influencer
To locate the right influencers, we search for people whose social following matched the audience we were targeting (Millennial and/or Gen Z, interested in style and fashion) and who had an overall brand aesthetic that matched that of True Religion’s frames.
We settled on seven influencers, two male and five female, of different ethnicities, races, and body types. We asked each of them to answer what #BeingSeen meant to them personally and to post their answers with photos of themselves in their True Religion eyewear.
Source: @rodneyhazard
Source: #BeingSeen lookbook, featuring @ArrayofFaces
We also chose a nonprofit that a portion of profits from the True Religion frames would benefit: Restoring Vision, a global nonprofit that distributes reading glasses to people in need. We made sure our influencers knew about the great work this organization was doing, and asked them to tag it in every post.
While our influencer team was hard at work with this awesome group, our content and creative teams were busy working on another aspect of the campaign: the Power of Being Seen website.
Online showcase: showing off True Religion’s frames and celebrating its rebel spirit with a dedicated website
True Religion also needed a website to showcase the frames and help people locate a retailer.
So we created a simple, streamlined, and stylish website that allowed users to see all the True Religion frames, men’s and women’s alike, as well as locate their nearest Walmart Vision Center.
Source: powerofbeingseen.org
We had the influencers each include a link in their posts to the Power of Being Seen website, but we also incorporated the influencers’ posts into the website itself. One of the most effective touches? A “See My Frames” call-to-action link that took viewers to the frames that each influencer was wearing in his or her photo.
Putting together the Walmart Vision Center locator—well, that required some technical can-do on the part of our developers, but their stellar skills gave us an easy-to-use locator that visitors could use by simply typing in their address or city.
We sprinkled some of our SEO magic on the site, let it go live, and put our social strategy into motion.
Social amplification: on-brand, perfectly-timed social posts
Both Walmart and True Religion needed a series of social posts that would amplify the great response that our influencers were already getting.
So we developed two separate series of social posts targeting both Walmart’s and True Religion’s audiences. The biggest balancing act was staying true to both True Religion’s reputation as a luxury brand, and Walmart’s focus on cost-savings.
By timing the social posts and influencer timelines to a tee, we were able to generate huge buzz around True Religion’s eyewear launch. But don’t take our word for it—the numbers speak for themselves.
Here are the results:
8 influencers
30+ posts
506,360 (and still growing) reach
3,657 total website page-views—1,306 (35.71%) of which are store locator page-views
Every page has a location auto pull locator on it, and therefore marked store-locator specific traffic is a direct representation of visitors’ intent to travel to their local Walmart and purchase.
2,241 (61.27%) are frame-specific visits
Or to put it more succinctly:
8 Influencers, 30+ posts, and a 500k+ reach resulted in more than 3,500 meaningful website visits, where shoppers viewed frames and identified their local Walmart location.
To cap off this memorable campaign, we created a LookBook featuring our creative, screenshots of the influencers’ posts, and the campaign’s results for our client to share both internally and at trade shows.
Needless to say, the client was thrilled with the results, and we were gratified by the results of our efforts.
Need help developing a winning campaign that will knock the socks off your audience and grow your brand? Get in touch!
