Daniel Wellington – A Social Media Golden Child

Posted on April 26, 2015 by iagegracefully

A couple years ago, Daniel Wellington or the word Nato Strap didn’t mean much to any fashionables. Launched in 2011, Daniel Wellington became an international sensation in the fashion watch world with huge social following especially on Instagram. They did it without noticeble investment in traditional paid media (Print, OOH, TV, etc). However, they invested strategically on digital especially on social media, riding on the trend of UGC (User Generated Content. It’s not a new concept. Burberry has done it well with artoftrend.com). The term “Nato”, originally from British Navy, is not widely used in the interchangeable straps watches world.

Sleek & Simple Design

What’s their key to the great success? Let’s sum them up:

1. Clear and Concise Brand Story

The story began with a friendship across the world. Daniel Wellington is supposed to be a dynamic individual who has a James Bone Flair and wears his Rolex with a Nato Strap.The brand is supposed to be a tribute to the man with the same name. (Seriously, there’s never a photo of Daniel Wellington on the internet. I’m personally doubting the existence of such person.

Quoted directly from Daniel Wellington’s Official Site:

Words Only

2. Clearly defined persona & Target Audience

Persona

Daniel Wellington himself is the ultimate brand ambassador – gentlemanly and refined, yet completely unpretentious. (According to Fashionbeams.com). Mr Wellington has a colorful personality and a great sense of style.

The design is simple –

the Nato Strap
the Leather Strap
A Watch for all Occasions summed that up

Target Audience:

For the modern style conscious male, but, ‘not just for men”. (How clever is that!)

3. Well-rounded visual appeal on the right platform – Instagram

Shows how watches can match with different seasons/occasions by the easy change of strap (now everyone knows the NATO strap..) the over 917K fans is a good indicator of its success. It’s definitely thew golden child of Instagram – the visually appealing platforms for the fashionables

Daniel Wellington Has over 710K fans around the world, way more than its Facebook following. The place of all the quality content.

4. Strong Word of Mouth Network

That’s actually the top secrets of their success. They seeded out thousands of watches to numerous bloggers in different sectors and offered their fans a unique/personalised 15%-20% discount code for their fans to buy the watches directly from DW’s official site (of course, they do free shipping to lower the barrier).

As Shown in their Tmall Flagship Page

Benefits of Extensive Bloggers outreach

1. Credibility – they are influencers. They built up their flowering and their own brand. It’s simple endorsement. They don’t need to be all fashion bloggers, as long as they poise a lifestyle followers aspire to.

2. Content – bloggers are content generators. Content is king. This is exactly what bloggers are good at. They create very impressive photos with the watches under the hashtag #DanielWellingtonWatches. With the bloggers and key opinion leaders (KOLs) starting the trend, others follows and a social culture of taking visually appealing image with DW watches is a cool thing to do.

3. Traffic – it’s all about sales at the end of the day. With the personalised discount, bloggers are more willing to direct traffic to DW’s site and encourage their fans to purchase – internet word of mouth.

4. Quality User Generated Content (UGC)

As the led by the fashionables, a social culture of #DanielWellingtonWatches have been formed. Quality UGC is ultimate consumer engagement. #DWpickoftheday offering no incentive but featuring the photos on DW’s official Instagram has been a great way to keep the momentum going for more quality UGC. It’s a symbol of style if your photo is picked. DW won the exposure and also the heart of the consumers – double win.

Featuring quality UGC (User Generated content

6. Board & Decentralised distribution

DW is sold in over 450 points in APAC and over 35 major online stores. They ranked no. 11 in the top watch brands in terms of sales on 11.11 in 2014. Their first ever store is in LCX Hong Kong. Rumor has it. The sales is impressive as well. As for Tmall, DW does play by Tmall’s rules, offering discount, coupon, 50% off here and there, even for online activation didn’t require such deep discount.

The Key to DW’s success is their smart use of social media and bloggers outreach. Whether or not, the brand is a one time hit or could emerge to an icon in fashion watch is still unknown. They just launched a new watch Dapper. What do you think?

(I did ordered mine online using one of the bloggers’ discount code 😉 Online Shoppaholic ME)

My Takeaway from Yahoo OMS 2014

Posted on November 9, 2014 by iagegracefully

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.

More juicy and scandalous photos here.

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.

There’s even a Muppet Wiki Page dedicated to this campaign.

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.

Perfect Marriage of Social Media & Ecomm – GLAMOUR SALES | DOGGY SALES CASE STUDY

Posted on June 25, 2014 by iagegracefully

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