7 influencer campaigns to inspire you

These days every individual who has a social media account wields a degree of influence in one circle or another. With 88% of customers trusting online reviews more than the conventional advertising and 40% of Millenials using ad-blockers, these social media influencers act as powerful tools for brands. Here are all those brands that successfully tapped into this emerging phenomenon to influence customers.

1. Daniel Wellington


 

Daniel Wellington, the Swedish watchmaker has been able to leverage its brand effectively with the help of influencers in different niches, mainly lifestyle and fashion. In order to raise awareness about the watches and prompt brand conversions, Daniel Wellington partnered with top instagrammers and celebrities around the world. It gifted free watches to selected social influencers on Instagram and asked them to post a picture of the watch on their personal profile with the hashtag danielwellington.

By posting pictures, influencers not only promoted the brand but also offered their followers a discount on the purchase of the watch. Additionally, Daniel Wellington ran several photo contest campaigns such as the “Pick of the day”, which invited Instagram users to post pictures of their DW watches under the hashtag #DWPickoftheDay. These initiatives garnered 1.5 million Instagram posts under the danielwellington hashtag and the brand’s main account amassed over 3.5m followers.

 

2. Suzuki


 

Suzuki, the auto conglomerate, recently came up with an innovative campaign to connect with its customers in Pakistan. Its #MyStoryMySuzuki initiative encouraged individuals to post their Suzuki memories of in the form of pictures, videos, poems on social media. It collaborated with Pakistan’s most popular actor, Fawad Khan; his Suzuki story received 75 shares and 129,000 views on Facebook.

Suzuki's General Manager Marketing Mr. G. H. Agha  underscored the influence of social media by explaining how this initiative helped the brand build "an even stronger bond" with customers. Susuki held an award ceremony for #MSMS Season1 at Pearl Continental, Karachi on Sept 26, 2018. The top three participants were awarded Suzuki motorcycles: 1^st Prize - GR-150, 2^nd Prize – GS-150SE and 3^rd Prize – GD-110S. It plans to build on this goodwill with the launch of #MSMS Season2.

 

 

3. Airbnb


 

Airbnb started out with a simple goal, to revive the startup and make it a global phenomenon in the hospitality industry. Thus, the brand joined forces with famous celebrity influencers to increase the brand’s reach and maximise its exposure. In 2015, when Mariah Carey became the first influencer to book her Malibu accommodation through Airbnb, the brand got the striking idea to come up with a an original marketing strategy. Carey, with over six million followers on Instagram, posted a picture taken at the luxurious beach house in Malibu that she stayed at and tagged Airbnb in the picture, as well as the caption. The post received 45,000 likes within minutes.

Besides Mariah Carey, the brand’s latest major influence came via Lady Gaga.  During the Super Bowl event, Airbnb provided Lady Gaga with a $20 million estate in Houston to stay at. Lady Gaga thanked Airbnb in her sponsored Instagram post and shared it with her 27 million followers. The post garnered over 500,000 likes, 4,000 comments and got coverage from the press, with features in Vanity Fair, Buzzfeed and People. In the last two years, due to the sponsored posts by various influencers, the brand has received more than 18 million likes and over 510,000 comments.

 

 

4. SKI II


 

SKII, a skincare company, pioneered the celebrity brand ambassadorship in the Asian beauty industry. Last year, SKII collaborated with the Chinese actresses Jiangxin and Tang Wei to create the short film called “Life Has No Limit“. The film was a commentary on the Chinese stigmatization of “leftover women” and encouraged women to fight the damaging cultural perceptions attached to age. It instantly went viral on social media as it received 17 million views in just two days on Miaopai (Chinese video sharing and streaming site) and the brand came up in 100 posts.

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SKII tapped Chiara Ferragni, a global fashion icon, Kasumi Arimura, award winning Japanese actress, Nini, renowned Chinese actress and Lee Siyoung, top South Korean boxer for its biggest digital promotion last year. The "Face the Wild |Face the Camera Extreme Expedition" campaign, which launched four short films received 70 million views collectively.  With 13.27 billion digital impressions and 4.46 million social actions in five weeks, SKII got an unparalleled digital response.

 

 

5. Zara


 

Clothing power house Zara collaborated with top fashion-focused Instagrammers on the design project #iamdenim. The campaign highlighted products that were showcased in an appealing way to the target audience. By working with several top fashion influencers like Teesh Rosa, Zara was able to give the impression that their products were easily accessible to the people. The influencers Instagram posts showcasing Zara’s clothing line not only educated the followers on current fashion trends, but also provided them with tips on dressing styles.

Due to the accomplishments of their campaign, many competitors copied their strategy in hopes of gaining success. Zara's campaign was an accomplishment because the company handed the control over to the fashion influencers, the people that customers looked up to for fashion advice. The subtle content was the USP of the campaign that successfully connected with the followers of the influencers’ and helped Zara gain 4.6 million new followers.

 

 

6. Amazon India


 

In order to boost sales of its Kindle Paperwhite in India, Amazon came up with a social media campaign to promote e-reading in the country. It roped in two local best-selling authors, Ashwin Singhi and Amish Tripathi and made videos with them. Both authors, who enjoy widespread popularity on social media, took their audiences through their love of reading and how they made the transition to e-reading. The features available in the Kindle device were also highlighted in the videos. The videos garnered more than 147000 views and were received positively by the audience.

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Because of the overwhelming positive result received by this influencer campaign, Amazon Kindle India embarked on a journey to make the reading experience more attractive. It started the hashtag #CrazyForReading and urged users to share their stories and love for reading. The craziest story or anecdote would get featured online and the user would also win an Amazon Kindle.

 

 

7. Nike


 

In order to promote its latest Air Vapormax series, Nike turned to the popular YouTube sensation: the father-son duo- Dan and Lincoln Markham. The two started their YouTube journey in 2014; their channel, “What’s Inside?” has nearly 6 million subscribers. The purpose of their channel is to use different objects and take them apart in order to reveal what is inside.

Nike collaborated with them and also invited them to its headquarters. In the primary video on their channel, the duo can be seen surrounded by Nike shoes where they cut up the Air Vapormax shoe in half, on camera. That video alone garnered over 3.6 million views and 32 thousand likes. Additionally, the duo’s trip to the Nike headquarters was featured on their secondary channel, “What’s Inside? Family” reserved for Q&A.