The Case
In a social landscape defined by creators, user-driven communities and influencers, it is no wonder that even Greece’s biggest tech retailer, has a hard time establishing a meaningful connection with young SoMe aficionados. The Plaisio team understood well that a brand cannot crack social simply by ramping up the spend on paid ads; they needed to become part of the zeitgeist and the conversation, building affinity with a hard-to-get audience: the notorious Gen Z. And then they could try to push for consideration and sales.
The Challenge
As with every challenge presented to us, we started with a set of questions: will a retail brand ever be able to command attention and inform about their summer promos & discounts, without pushing social ads or disrupting a delicious YouTube recipe? Can a retail brand be effortlessly cool and invoke consideration, with truly positive sentiment in user comments? Can a Greek brand with more than 1.5M followers on Social Media recruit even more fans organically, without resorting to extravagant giveaways? Spoiler alert: of course they can.
The Approach
We know for a fact that technology, from the cutest tiny ear pieces to the largest TV set, is inseparable from the daily lives of everyone: singles, couples, lovers, married people. This is why we naturally thought that Thank You, Next is the ideal place for the brand to operate, discuss and showcase its goods. After all we are talking about a community of more than 600.000 people, aging from 16-45 that come online multiple times per day to discuss and upload stories about their dating and relationship mishaps. All of them are one way or another tech consumers; all of them have at least one TYN-related story involving a smartphone, a smart TV or washing machine. We made sure that Plaisio entered the party in a smooth and fun way.
The Solution
In a Facebook group that lives and breathes storytelling, branded content was the way to go. However, we did it with a twist: instead of the brand doing the storytelling, the idea was to invite them as regular users, and have them commenting on user posts, especially those who directly involved a tech or electronic device: deus ex machina, quite literally. Thanks to our meticulous, 24/7 monitoring, every time there was a TYN post of a couple fight or disagreement involving EURO2020, the recurring heatwave, cleaning or electronics shopping, we made sure that the brand came up with a witty settling reply, including a subtle (or sometime obvious) nod to their summer offers. Intrusive much?
Actually no, as the community loved it! With a single PLAISIO comment recording up to 2.6K reactions, people started discussions, made requests to the brand for offers or obscure gadgets and at some point, waited for it to appear in every posted TYN story. Our unique “ambush” activation scored some impressive numbers: 1.9M total reach, more than 21.5K Facebook reactions and at least 2.1K user-generated comments on relevant posts.
Other unbox tech. We do out-of-the-box tech.
