Category: Socila Media & Viral Marketing
Advertiser: ZELLERS
Product/Service: RETAIL
Agency: JOHN ST
Creative Director/Partner: Angus Tucker (john st.)
Creative Director/Partner: Stephen Jurisic (john st.)
Art Director: Hannah Smit (john st.)
Copywriter: Keri Zierler (john st.)
Digital Producer: Cas Binnington (john st.)
Group Account Director: Heather Crawley (john st.)
Account Executive: Joelle Woodruff (john st.)
Account Supervisor: Jared Applebaum (john st.)
Production Company: (Hard Citizen)
Executive Producer: Jacinte Faria (Hard Citizen)
Executive Producer: Eva Preger (Hard Citizen)
Executive Producer: Link York (Hard Citizen)
Line Producer: Chris Boddy
Directors: The Perlorian Brothers
Online Production: (AmoebaCorp)
Editor: Brian Wells (School Editing)
Flame Artist: Paul Binney
Transfer House: (colr)
Audio House: (Vapor Music)
Agency: (John St)
Media placement: Facebook Campaign - Zellers Facebook Page - Nov.1st, 2011
Media placement: Youtube Videos - YouTube - Nov.1st, 2011
Media placement: Twitter Feed - Twitter - Nov.1st, 2011
Media placement: Radio Ads - Canadian National Radio - Nov.1st, 2011
Media placement: Facebook Ads - Facebook - Nov.1st, 2011
Describe the brief/objective of the direct campaign.
Zellers is an 80 year-old department store in Canada that had been purchased by the American retail giant, Target. Christmas 2011 was going to be their last Christmas sale ever. They needed to sell a ton of merchandise but they had a media budget that was a fraction of previous years'.
We decided to do something they had never done before. We would run the entire sale on Facebook and to get the kind of engagement we would need to make it a success, we would let the Zellers customers run the sale.
Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective with reference to the projected response rates and desired outcome.
Rather than ignore the fact that Target was taking over Zellers, we embraced it.
We told our customers that with Target coming in, Zellers’ senior management was taking early retirement and leaving Zellers Facebook fans in charge of the Christmas Sale (or what we called the Festive Finale).
So if consumers wanted a say on what products would be going on sale, and for how much, all you had to do was like the page, and then vote.
The Festive Finale built a highly-engaged online fanbase and exceeded every single metric set out for it.
Explain why the creative execution was relevant to the product or service.
A Canadian retail icon for over 80 years, consumers (and Zellers employees) were understandably upset that 'their Zellers' was being taken over by the big bad American retail giant.
By putting the sale in the hands of the consumer and the Zellers employees it gave them a sense of control of Zellers’ final days. (And of course, it gave them a chance to get amazing deals on exactly what they wanted to get a deal on.)
But it was also fun. What could have felt like a funeral was anything but.
Describe the results in as much detail as possible with particular reference to the RESPONSE of the target audience including deliverability statistics, response rates, click throughs, sales cost per response, relationships built and overall return on investment.
The campaign exceeded every metric set out for it. Our videos had over 500,000 views on YouTube, Facebook ads drove 30% more traffic to the page than expected, and coupon engagement was off the charts – 28 times higher than the expected rate. Customers using Festive Finale coupons had an average basket 2.5 times bigger than the average Zellers shopper.
Overall, our online fan base tripled, we built a highly engaged social media community (people 'talking about Zellers' on FB was 5 times the average rate in their category) and Zellers had its best fourth quarter in 10 years.