The Brief

The campaign exploded with thousands of unique entries styled and uploaded to Instagram, establishing an extraordinary 38% redemption rate. They were even picked up by Australia’s coolest retailer General Pants and sold in-store as a stand alone, KMS branded product. But most importantly, sales were up 27% on last year. Our previously unengaged stylists had become true brand advocates, each spending hours with our brand perfecting their style and then sharing it with their social networks and customers in-store.

Creative Execution

We created one of the world’s first purpose built toys for Instagram. In doing so we understood that our audience are all about creativity and self expression, this is the world they live in everyday. Our campaign was designed to inspire them to engage with the brand using their extraordinary talents and creativity in a unique and exciting way. We also knew that Instagram was the perfect platform for this audience. Internal trade research revealed that among stylists, take up of Instagram is particularly high. It is a visual medium perfectly designed for engaging with a deeply visual audience.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

To achieve this we decided to create a pop culturally relevant campaign to connect stylists with our brand idea of ‘play.’ And so the KMS Shags were born, a range of shaggy dolls in desperate need of some styling help. We delivered dolls to salons across Australia. They came in specially designed boxes with messaging that encouraged them to style their KMS Shag using the HAIRPLAY range before sharing the results on Instagram with prizes to be won for the most creative entries. Ultimately we wanted stylists to spend time getting creative with KMS California and share those results with colleagues and customers alike.

Results

The campaign exploded with thousands of unique entries styled and uploaded to Instagram, establishing an extraordinary 38% redemption rate. They were even picked up by Australia’s coolest retailer General Pants and sold in-store as a stand alone, KMS branded product. But most importantly, sales were up 27% on last year. Our previously unengaged stylists had become true brand advocates, each spending hours with our brand perfecting their style and then sharing it with their social networks and customers in-store.