Today, there’s a top banners on the biggest eCommerce platform in China – Tmall.
On the top purple banner, the Chinese reads “Secret Apple Product launch 2015”.
Tmall Home Page Top Banner on May 6, 2015
When you click into the banner, you’ll get the idea – A landing page with a typical Apple/Mac look and feel only with Real Apples in the key visual. (See the page here)
Landing Page for Queens Apple – sells actual apple – the fruit.
Looks Familiar?
To top it up, they actually mock Apple to the max by creating a product videos completely Apple Style. I seriously love the video and the whole creative idea. (What exactly does a VP of Visibility Reduction do?)
Yes, they are selling real apples from New Zealand.
This is by far, the best apple-mocking campaign I’ve seen (Apart from the whole Xiaomi craze). Have a laugh and enjoy!
Follow-up:
It didn’t stop there:
Queens Apple and Tmall Internatinal worked with two top celebrities who are currently starring in the celebrities dating reality show “Let’s fall in love” (我们相爱吧)
With their Quotes, which had been hot topic on Weibo since the show aired.
Ren Zhong’s Apple Packing with his famous quote
Shangwenjie Customized Packaging
Of course, KOLs (Nice adaptation of Coke’s “Share a Coke” – Isn’t the packaging familiar too?
KOL Posts
They also built up the hashtag/ Topic on Weibo #AppleforReal# (真的是苹果）- It’s less than 48 hours since its debut on Tmall, the topic itself has over 20 million views and 17K Tweets and definitely counting.
I’m getting old and forgetful so before I completely forget why I disappeared from my office for a whole day. Here’s a summary of my key takeaway from the Yahoo OMS 2014, Hong Kong.
Statics:
2014, Hong Kong people spend avg. 148 mins daily accessing to the internet through their mobile devices, which is a 12% increase compared to last year.
Surprising? Nope. Any new engaging ad format on Mobile? Not that I’ms aware of. Tough cookie to crack.
Tumblr:
Top 3 Tumblr countries in the world:
1. US
2. Brazil
3. Japan
56% of the users are aged 13-34 (opps, I barely make the cut, ;-p) with quite even gender distribution, 51% female and 49% male.
I’m so glad that one of the countries I look after is on the top 3. My colleague and I were discussing why Japan is so up high on Tumblr use?
My take?
1. Tumblr is similar to Twitter that you don’t have to know your followers or the people you follow. You can remain completely anonymous, which fits their overall culture of being private and shy.
2. Tumblr is a very visual appealing platform with amazing animated gifs. With the Menga culture so deeply rooted in the Japanese culture, Japanese audience is no doubt easily fascinated by the visual/animated appeals.
Your take?
Intent of Use – Facebook Vs Twitter Vs Tumblr
Finally came Entertainment –
“Put Brands into Popular Culture and Popular Culture into Brands”
This is a key way to make your brand up to date and appeal to the current social media savvy, content seeking generation. You have to be either very funny, very touching or completely incredible to be a social media/viral babe.
Words of wisdom
“Don’t tell stories for Digital. Tells Stories. Take advantage of Digital.“
Many marketers, especially digital marketers, would fall into the trap that we have to create stories for digital. Viral campaign was such a buzz words a couple years ago. However, not all videos were made with the goals of getting viral would actually make it. Truth is, many just fail. Why? You have to have a GREAT story to begin with and the devil lives in the execution. It’s not that random low quality, flash of genius video don’t get viral, but these videos were usually not made to be viral.
I was responsible for a couple of semi-failure, myself. It’s hard to have a “brand-right” viral video unless your brand is embracing the risk. “Safe” can get you nowhere.
Speaking of successful campaign, here’s the tips:
“Think like a Marketer, Act like a Producer.”
Of course. It’s much easier said that done. Let’s see how it’s done well.
The QVC’s stunt with Miss Pissy & the Great late Joan Rivers is simply genius
Act 1:
At one of the red carpet after-party, Ms. Joan Rivers, stormed out from the party with whipped cream on her face. With such a controversy personality, this potential “assault” attracted media attention. All the entertainment news was picking this up.
Later, a “secret” clip was revealed in the internet. The “attacker” was actually Miss Piggy from the Muppet. At that moment, the public knew it’s not some common cat fights between celebrities. It’s indeed a stunt, but it’s interesting enough to keep you follow.
Act 2:
A video documenting of Ms. Rivers & Piggy’ decade-long hostility against each other came up with interviews of other celebrities, with their speculation on the fight. Of course, the celebrities were carefully chosen. My favourite has to be, the girl from “Precious”, she went like “Seeing the cake thing, just broke my heart”. Her face was priceless. – This is pure entertainment.
Act 3:
Finally, the devil was revealed – Ms. Rivers and Piggy is going to battle on who’s better by going on QVC, a traditional TV shopping channel and see who can sell more in a day. Yes, the devil is QVC. Even though at that point, you knew the stunt is for QVC, you still want to know who won. The winner, of course, is QVC, who finally can tab into the younger generation and had the most social day.
What else did I learn? Yes, something for fellow marketers. Listen to your audience before coming up with the idea for a campaign. It’s not something new but as a marker, sometimes, you simply get ahead of yourself and forget the basic.
Make your campaign goal as simple as possible.
Listen to your audience and analyze your product’s strength. Identify a topic worth the campaign
Work closely with your partners – trust them and be understanding
That’s about it. Hope it’s entertaining enough and it’s something you don’t know here. Got questions, please comment and let me know.
In the event of Tmall 626 Mid Year Sale, let me share a genius campaign by Glamour Sales:
A Classical Easter Egg campaign that was made success with the following:
1. A thought-through strategy
Random codes to provoke curiosity -> KOLs to spread and pass on the meaning of the secret code -> let the sales come in -> conclude the campaign with a cute & witty video for branding = GENIUS
2. Smart use of social media and KOLs (A network of over 600 different KOLs)
3. Cute & witty factors for viral videos
Ever since 2009, Burberry has always been a true pioneer and inspiration for digital marketing. It’s one of the few companies that fully immerses and embraces the digital world.
‘[Digital] is something that should never be an afterthought – it should never be a checklist that is something to do. Digital for me is not a project; digital is a way that we live. If you deal with it as a project, it will always be superficial.
-Christopher Bailey, CEO of Burberry’
It’s hard to imagine that this digital marketing genius is not from a marketing background at all. He was from creative background. He always openly admits that Burberry as being “as much a media-content company as a design company.”
Launched in 2009, it was Burberry’s first big scale digital move – one of a kind style sharing platform. The beauty of it:
– Invites Burberry’s loyal following of trench coat to post their selfies to the Art of Trench site to share their taste
– Link the user generated content to its ecommerce site to allow direct transaction
– Relied largely on public relations and word of month and user submission for the campaign exposure
– Facebook fansbase grew to over 1 million at the same year of launch
– Ecommerce sales grew by 50% year of year
– Apart from online buzz, they also held various event around the globe to promote Art of Trench. One of the notable events recent was the Art of Trench Exhibition in Shanghai.
Partnering with the right parties is like being with the cool gangs in High school. If all the cool kids carries an iPhone, iPhone is the cool must-have. (Ok, reality check, there was no iPhone when I was in high school. I grew up in an high school full with humble bookwarms. Good grades were cool and we wrote poems and essay for pastime. That explained my poor sense of style or complete lack of it when I was young)
Burberry makes their media content one step further by collaborating with right influensers.
By collaborating with the God Father of Street Style Snap – Scott Schuman, aka the Sartorialist, Art of Trench mini site was filled with artfully crafted fashion images. By leveraging on then already-famous, the Sartorialist, Art of trench created an exclusive “in-the-know’ feel that appealed to the luxury consumers
One of the finest example of Burberry’s strategic collaboration. By working with some of Britain’s finest musicians, fans can enjoy rare live acoustic performance directly from Burberry’s social platform.
The platform featured a series of short films of up and coming British musicians who have been hand-picked by Mr. Bailey, shot in scenic locations with the artists wearing Burberry clothing. The films bring a hip edge to the brand’s image. The project can attract a wider audience that enjoys other aspects of British pop culture. Don’t forget, these films are highly shareable content for social media.
Fashion shows used to be exclusvie and somewhat private for the “in-the-know’, Burberry invited fans to watch the show all together with social media. In 2013, they took one step further, by partnering with Apple’s then newly launched iPhone5S, with an enhanced filming function, to document every step of the way to the spring/summer 2014 fashion show.
Of course, the benefits were mutual. Both brands gained the buzz and praise they deserved by being innovative and visionary. No wonder Angela Ahrendtz gained the attention of Apple’s HR too.
Burberry Kisses lets Google Chrome and mobile users share “kisses” via a desktop camera or touchscreen devices. The kisses can then personalise, by adding a Burberry Beauty lip colour’, before sending it on. The “journey’ of each kiss is then ‘brought to life’ via a 3D animation using Google Earth and Streetview. The kiss actually travels. Not as impactful as Art of Trench or Acoustic, Kisses does give technology ‘a bit of heart and soul’, according to Mr. Bailey. It’s indeed a very cute idea.
3. Digitalized the in-store experience
No one can beat the London flagship store which was designed as a physical manifestation of the Burberry Website.
Burberry World Live
Real-life Bespoke – customers can engage with the products both online and in-person, customize their apparel and try on RFID-tagged items in front of a mirror that projects them onto videos
iPads – with complimentary iPads in hand, customers can relax on the couches as they browse through the products, view videos of clothing being worn by models, video videos and read social reviews. Customers can even pay through the iPad thought waiting in line at the check-out counter.
Burberry World Live also give customers the chances to attend events including gigs by the Acoustic artists, which are streamed online.
I’m sure Christopher Bailey would speak better himself.
4. Complementing social platform contents
Facebook – the Official Voice
•Facebook timeline is home to a plethora of pictures documenting Burberry fashion shoots and advertising its products
•New content published daily with prepared marketing message.
•Every single tweet includes either a video or an image, often of celebrities wearing Burberry clothes at social events.
•Very few links back to Burberry’s ecommerce site.
•Uses Twitter to promote and build its brand image, leaving it up to users to find their way to the online store.
•All the tweets are pre-planned marketing messages
•A separate feed for customer service – marketing messages and customer queries don’t get mixed up with one another.
TweekWalk
•Burberry live tweeted its runway show, providing Burberry Twitter fans with behind the scenes photos and rare insights into the fashion world.
•When static photos proved too passé for Burberry, it switched to animated gifs. The gifs brought the movement and life of a fashion show straight to fans, which is great if you ever wanted to see an endless loop of a model twirling in Burberry coat.
Instagram – Friendly Images
•Posts images that could have been taken by anyone with a smartphone, not advertising imageries
•Enlisted top Instagram photographers to generate buzz about the Brit Rhythm fragrance, using the #ThisIsBrit hashtag. People who received samples in the mail posted their special deliveries on Instagram, tagging @Burberry.
•Show London in its full glory with images of the brightly lit flagship store and Big Ben through the London mist.
Pinterest – Imageries Inspirations
Various Pin Boards for fashion inspiration
London focused Pinterest board pays homage to the city that gave birth to its trench coats with iconic images of the city. Perfect if you’ve ever wondered what London looks like through the Hudson Instagram filter.
Personalised messages for everyone who shared the image. Acted as a reward for engaging with the content and also helped create a personal attachment with the brand. It’s also likely that the recipients shared the new Images with their own social circles.
Handwritten note from Chris
Asset created for celebrating 10 million Facebook fans
Thematic Integrated Campaigns
Britain Weather
Everyone knows Brits are obsessed with weather especially when the whole world’s focus was in London during the Olympics. Tapping into this is fashion brand Burberry, which has created a summer ad campaign based on monitoring the vagaries of the British skies in billboards around the world, as well as on the Weather Channel….
The campaign includes digital billboards situated in major cities across the world, including London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong, which are fed live London-based weather content. Screens will be updated with imagery of the city and live temperature checks over the course of the day.
In addition, Burberry has partnered with the Weather Channel during the Olympics, providing all advertising on the Channel’s global iPhone/iPad apps, where it will also show imagery of London weather conditions.
My Ode to Burberry!
[The post hasn’t been properly quoted all the source yet. I’ll add up the reference part within a week).
iagegracefully 