The Challenge
Our goal was to create a campaign and ignite a revolution. A revolution against the encroachment of plastic trees that is endangering our environment and diluting the magic of holiday traditions. We envision a future where the authenticity, aroma, and shared memories of farm-grown Christmas trees will again take center stage, rekindling a connection that has spanned generations. The Real Christmas tree industry, the lifeblood of local economies and family legacies, is facing unprecedented challenges. The allure of convenience-driven plastic trees has cast a shadow over the timeless beauty of the real thing. Yet, we firmly believe we can turn the tide and revitalize the season’s spirit with the right marketing initiative.
The Plan
We selected one major market to test out our messaging and media approach to see what the effect on Real Christmas Tree sales would be. We created video and static content that educated consumers about the negative impact plastic Christmas trees have on both the environment and the laborers, while showcasing the positive impact buying a real Christmas tree has on stainability, the local economy, and strengthening family ties.
Part of our strategy was be to find third party validators to convey stories. We’ve found that people tend to trust the nurse who understands the effects of dust and plastic toxins, and would never use them to decorate her home; or a mom who says she doesn’t use plastic for her kids meals because of BPAs so why would she expose them to the toxins in a plastic tree; or even the family who talks about the tradition of getting the tree together at their local Christmas tree lot each year. In addition to validators, we interviewed local tree farmers to see firsthand how the plastic tree industry is affecting local business owners and reminding people about the importance to shop local, shop real.
The content was then delivered to millions of consumers across social media, streaming TV, websites and mobile apps. We created unique audience profiles to target the specific interests and concerns of each consumer with the corresponding message that would resonate with them the most. This allowed us to be extremely efficient and effective within a limited budget and time frame. The ultimate goal was to make consumers aware of the dangers of plastic trees and continuously reinforce to them that the clear choice for their family is a real Christmas tree.
Throughout the campaign we highlighted the #GetRealKeepitReal theme to help propel the phrase to the front of consumer minds throughout the holiday season.
Results
While almost every major city market in the US saw a decline between 5-10% in sales from the previous year, the market we ran our #getRealKeepItReal test campaign in saw a 3.4% INCREASE in sales.
Andy Manar for Senate
The Challenge
Andy Manar was running for re-election in a Southern Illinois district where Trump won by 17 points in 2016. The district is mostly rural but includes parts of the urban areas of Decatur and Springfield. We knew going in it would be tough given the climate and the Trump voters’ sentiments toward incumbents, especially Democratic incumbents. We also knew from early polling that Senator Manar’s top legislative accomplishment –changing the inequitable school funding formula– resonated with those same voters. We decided to go up early on Facebook to introduce Senator Manar to voters and tout that record.
The Plan
We launched the campaign in April of 2018 with a social media and email burst around the announcement and for 30 days after. During this time we tested out multiple creative types and messages targeting registered voters to hone in on what was resonating with each demographic and use those insights to tailor future ads. We also added a facebook and Google Analytics pixels to all pages of the candidate’s website so that we can follow users from the time of ad exposure through to conversion. If they dropped off the site prior to conversion, we retarget them with a display or secondary video ad both on social media and across the web with a message relevant specifically to the point at which they left off from the site, to draw them back for a completion. The first phase was all about learning so that we can expand and build around what is working best for each user/demo.
Once we understood which creative types and messages are resonating with which users we added in additional tactics that used those key findings to draw upon a larger user pool and ultimately acquire more supporters and donations. During phase two we rolled out paid search using a variety of keywords, some of which we learned during our phase 1 social media push and others are straight forward such as all versions of the candidates name, their opponents and key election issues. For phase three we built off of the early TV buys from Nov/Dec and social media learnings, delivering highly targeted video ads on Youtube and CTV. For each of these tactics we continued to track from ad impression through to conversion and all actions in between to ensure we are continuously driving users back to the site to subscribe and donate to the campaign.
As the election got closer, we continued to add in more media tactics (Native, Digital out of home, Audio streaming, etc) that focused on persuasion and GOTV as well as optimize the targeting and creative across the existing tactics. The final days leading up to the election we crafted high impact takeovers on key publishers, channels and social media influencers to ensure the candidate was top of mind when people walked in to cast their vote on election day.
Results
While other democratic candidates including those in the congressional district that overlaps Senator Manar’s district lost; Senator Manar won 56-43.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
The Challenge
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia wanted to run a digital campaign to promote their annual “Spin In” charity event. The goal of the campaign was to drive incremental donations and sign-ups for the event.
Results
- Campaign delivered 877 total conversions: 404 donations and 473 event registrations.
- 1st party CRM targeting was responsible for 36% of all conversions; meaning our custom approach directly led to 64% of the conversions.
- Using our approach we were able to have an incremental lift of 178%
The Plan
The campaign launched in early January and ran through the event date in early March. This allowed us enough time to do creative testing, generate awareness and follow through to conversion.
We were responsible for the custom development of creatives featuring a countdown clock to the day of the event. The ads were built in 6 different sizes with 4 versions per size to test messaging and fit the unique needs of each channel. The creatives ran on Facebook, Instagram, Websites and Mobile apps wherever our target user was consuming content at the time.
We used custom data sets to target likely donors and people interested in charitable events. First party data was also on-boarded by the team and used for targeting participants from previous years as well as creating look-a-like audiences. Conversion pixels for the campaign were used to track completed donations and ticket purchases.
Optimizations
Though A/B testing 4 messages, we narrowed down to the top 2 creatives after 2 weeks of data and analysis. We also created an audience of site visitors from the tracking pixels which allowed us to retarget users who initiated an action but did not complete a donation or check-out. We found that after an average of 3 “reminders”, they were 41% more likely to finish the conversion.
Keith Amemiya for Mayor of Honolulu
The Challenge
Keith Amemiya announced his campaign for Mayor of Honolulu on August 29th, 2019. Keith is a business and community leader who has never run for elected office before. While his accomplishments in business and in non-profits have been impressive, his name ID was relatively low. Baseline polling pegged it at thirty one percent to be exact. All other candidates running for Mayor were better known from serving previously or currently holding office. Three top opponents have name IDs pushing ninety percent or better. Keith began the campaign well behind the frontrunners, more than twenty points outside of a potential runoff position.
It was critical for Keith to begin a digital persuasion campaign aimed at boosting his name ID and branding him as a bold and innovative outsider, who will take the city in a new direction.
The Plan
We started with a social media campaign eight months out to begin earning name recognition and building out a base of social followers. We then expanded into running Youtube, CTV and programmatic display ads targeting all registered voters in a effort to get as much reach as we could early on. The early creatives were focused on introducing Keith to voters and helping him become a household name. The second phase of messaging included persuasion messaging and highlighted local validators who had first hand experiences with Keith.
Optimizations
Once the campaign was live for a few weeks, we analyzed the data to create micro audiences based on performance of each ad, channel and target demographic. We produced additional video ads that were tailored to each of these audiences based on the data we gathered on the issues and messaging that performed best among each. This highly targeted second phase helped us to be extremely efficient and effective with an otherwise tight budget.
Results
At the end of a campaign, it’s impossible to calibrate exactly which mode of communication is responsible for the final results. How much of the movement during the race can be attributed to TV ads, mail pieces, digital, or media coverage? What makes this particular case study unique, is that during the course of Keith’s digital campaign, there have been no other modes of communication deployed – no TV ads, no mail, and very light press coverage at this point. The only paid form of communications thus far has been this digital persuasion effort. An internal tracking poll within the last two weeks showed significant movement in both name ID and in the horse race. Keith boosted his name ID by more than twenty percentage points, helping to secure him a position in the run off. With more than six months to go before the election, it’s fair to say that the digital persuasion campaign positioned Keith Amemiya to be one of the front runners in the race for Mayor of Honolulu.