The Campaign

Ranking only 15th in the country’s skin care category, Garnier China launched in 2013 Garnier PS cream with the ambition to become the preferred brand of the Chinese new generation. With limited media budget from the client, the communication objective is to emerge the brand from the crowd with strong resonation among the young Chinese generation to create a strong buzz & WOM on EPR and consumer advocacy online. The target audience are mostly young, dynamic, me-centric and like to photoshop their own pictures with mobile apps before posting on social media. Our strategy is to adopt an innovative EPR approach by hijacking the trendy topics under the digital concept “PS For Real” in order to create buzz and talkability of Garnier PS Cream on EPR and social media. The EPR campaign was also supported with a digital platform, social media activation and drive to store mechanism. This digital hijacking EPR strategy allows us to boost strong talkability and enormous media exposure on the product and the brand with limited media budget. After one simple activation on Nov 12th 2013, consumers actively engaged with the campaign, reaching the talkability of 7,000 reposts and 4,000 comments within 1 hour, 42,000 reposts and 9,000 comments within 3 hours. It amounted to top 5 hottest topic within 4 hours and reached the huge audience coverage of 276 million views in total.

The Brief

With limited media budget from the client, the communication objective is to emerge the brand from the crowd with strong resonance among the young Chinese generation to create a strong buzz & WOM on EPR and consumer advocacy online. The target audience are mostly young, dynamic, me-centric and like to photoshop their own pictures with mobile apps before posting on social media. Large research has been done in order to get a comprehensive understanding of our target audience’s preference and online behavior. The social team monitors the hot topics with the most user engagement 24-7.

Results

We have reached a massive awareness and talkability for the brand on the Chinese most popular social media platform Weibo, with very small media budget. We have, through one simple activation on Nov 12th 2013, reached the talkability of 7,000 reposts and 4,000 comments within 1 hour, 42,000 reposts and 9,000 comments within 3 hours. It amounted to top 5 hottest Weibo within 4 hours and reached the huge audience coverage of 276 million views in total. With this one simple activation planned and executed within half day, we have surpassed the KPI of 3 months within 3 hours!

Execution

Large research was done in the beginning of the project in order to get a comprehensive understanding of our target audience’s preference and online behavior. The social team monitored the hot topics with the most user engagement 24-7. After we identified potential hot topic, both embracing the TA group, and having a strong association with the products, we then quickly developed the digital activation creative content and contact KOLs to hijack this trending topic and push the campaign to the tipping point on EPR. Through making the connection between the client’s product and the hot topic, the buzz volumes are boosted to maximum within a short period of time. Consumers actively commented and reposted the campaign. This innovative solution ensures the viralbility of a real-time idea, the solid talkability of the brand on the social media with even several digital media talking about the campaign with zero media investment.

The Situation

Facing the challenge of a weak brand image, a lack of differentiation and edge vs. the Chinese brands, Garnier China launched in 2013 Garnier PS cream with the ambition to become the preferred brand of the Chinese new generation who is me centric and likes to photoshop their own pictures with mobile apps before posting on social media. The campaign is to launch Garnier PS cream and own the PS concept on the digital platforms by emphasizing the “PS for Real” claim along with a strong buzz & WOM to develop consumers advocacy.

The Strategy

Through research we discovered an insight form out target consumers who are mostly young girls, dynamic and me-centric. They like to photoshop their own pictures with mobile apps before posting on social media. It is called “PS yourself”. Facing limited media budget from the client and the strong competition from other brands who are mostly heavy in media investment, our strategy is to adopt an innovative EPR approach by hijacking the trendy topics and making Garnier PS Cream the hot topic on EPR platform. We launched the EPR campaign “PS For Real” with the support of a digital platform, social media activation and drive to store mechanism. This digital hijacking strategy allows us to boost strong talkability and enormous media exposure on Garnier PS Cream on EPR and social media with limited media budget.