Mitchell Yapp, director of media and analytics at Joe Fresh, shares how the marketing team leveraged insights and YouTube influencers to create custom video campaigns with the right messaging, at the right time.
Digital marketing teams have more data to draw on than ever, and this means more decisions for marketers. How do brands decide which opportunities to seize?
Last year, our insights surfaced opportunities to have a big impact with two audiences — millennial moms and young professionals, especially in Quebec. We decided to create a holiday campaign for both, but knew it would require a creative content strategy.
To reach them, we partnered with two YouTube influencers and crafted custom video campaigns during the weeks leading up to Black Friday, Cyber Monday (BFCM). It resulted in big online and offline wins, including a 170% lift in Joe Fresh website traffic (based on year-over-year performance.) Store visits also increased by more than 10X, and cost-per-store-visits decreased by -6%.
Here’s how we did it.
Gather insights and define your audiences early
Joe Fresh uses pre-holiday promotions to generate demand in the weeks leading up to BFCM, so we plan our strategy well before the season begins, and consult all parts of the company, from the product design team to store locations.
This cross-functional approach to planning includes grounding ourselves in insights across the company, and defining KPIs around what we’re trying to achieve. Joe Fresh has a rigorous testing culture, and we’re always trying to learn and optimize our channels to perform better with each campaign.
Reach your audiences with relevant, custom content
With our target audiences defined (millennial moms and young professionals), we began strategizing the best ways to reach them. Research shows over 90% of Canadians say YouTube helps them discover new products or brands.1 We knew YouTube ad campaigns would allow us to not only target these two audiences, but diversify our messaging and serve them more relevant content about sales and promotions leading up to BFCM.
We partnered with two high-impact YouTube influencers and collaborated on a content strategy that would resonate with both audiences.
TV personality and mom Jessi Cruickshank connects with new moms. She used humour and a 60-second shopping spree to relate to time-strapped parents.
Actress and model Maripier Morin is a fashion influencer from Quebec who resonates with young professionals. We took a more aspirational approach with her content, creating an editorial "lookbook" featuring the season's must-have items.
Lead customers down the funnel
A full-funnel strategy is important because everyone’s shopping journey is unique. Your message needs to be front-and-centre wherever they are on their journey.
As we moved closer to the big weekend, we drove customers further down the funnel. We targeted specific shopping categories and retargeted video viewers through bite-sized, six-second Joe Fresh bumper video ads featuring our YouTube content creators.
We also leveraged other Google tactics such as responsive display ads to remarket video views, and reached shoppers at the peak of demand by prioritizing high-intent shopping signals like add-to-carts. We wanted to make sure we were showing up for that customer wherever they were on the internet.
The results
Jessi Cruickshank’s videos resonated with moms, especially the message that they can shop online or in-store whenever they want. Her videos resulted in a 10% lift in purchase intent, and a 122% lift in brand search.
Maripier Morin’s video highlighted the versatility of Joe Fresh clothing and resulted in a 62% lift in brand recall, a 200% branded search lift, and a more than 20X lift in product search.
Our content experiment proved our two-strategy approach was worth the return. Insights allowed us to identify where we could have the most impact, and YouTube influencers helped us carve a space within the crowded holiday shopping season.
