The global retail industry is expected to grow from $5.84 billion in 2021 to $18.33 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 17.7%. This rapid growth can be attributed to the rise in market demand and growth, which is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels once the pandemic is over.
However, the presence of an endless number of brands in the industry makes it a very competitive sector. Therefore, retail brands always need to be at the top of their marketing game to attract new users. Also, they must make the utmost use of marketing channels available to them to capture the attention of their target audience just like these three retail brands did with their Twitter campaigns.
1. Hill City
Gap Inc. sought to launch a new apparel brand, Hill City, for men for which it wanted to leverage Twitter’s power for launching new products.
Their Objective
Hill City wanted to execute a very personalized campaign where it could form one-to-one connections with its target audience.
Approach & Solution
Hill City created a Direct Message chatbot, through which customers sending messages were replied to automatically. The apparel brand used these chatbots to invite the public to become “wear testers” for their products, thereby creating a kind of influencer program of real people who would develop a meaningful relationship with the brand.
Wear testers are clothes sent by Hill City in exchange for valuable product feedback, which subsequently helped in fine-tuning the collection. Hill City also created a Twitter Moment full of vivid, high-quality assets that embodied its brand identity to complement this program.
The Result
Hill City connected with thousands of people through its Twitter campaign with over 7,000 chatbot visits and more than 4,700 wear tester applications. Moreover, over 830 people RSVP’s through the bot to shop at Hill City.
2. Sonos
In 2017, Sonos was about to launch Sonos One, a voice-controlled smart speaker, and wanted to drive mass awareness around its launch.
Their Objective
Sonos wanted to drive mass awareness around its latest product and prove its value against larger voice-controlled speaker brands with bigger budgets.
Approach & Solution
Sonos teamed up with Twitter to reach out to the platform’s tech audience who love to be the first ones to know about new products. To reach out to this tech-savvy crowd, Sonos first created a short launch video that introduced Sonos One using Twitter’s creative practices.
Then it promoted the video on the launch day using two Twitter products i.e., First View, which takes over the first ad slot at the top of the timeline, and Promoted Trend, which appears at the top of the trending topic list. Together, these tools generated top-of-mind awareness of the Sonos One with every person who had logged into Twitter in the last 24 hours.
The Result
The Twitter campaign was a major success for Sonos and helped the brand garner 13.5M views on its video, which had a 58% higher view rate in First View. Also, there was a 10% boost in positive brand sentiment and 2.5x stronger purchase intent in First View.
3. Adidas Spain
With Madrid Marathon around the corner, Adidas Spain decided to launch a Twitter campaign to foster strong brand association amongst its Twitter audience who were fans of such competitive events.
Their Objective
Adidas Spain sought to create a highly targeted and personalized solution around the hashtag #WHYIRUNMADRID.
Approach & Solution
Adidas Spain divided its campaign into two stages using different creative formats before and after the race. Adidas first launched a series of Tweets containing a voting card, asking the runners for their reasons for participating in the race.
During the second stage, Adidas Spain launched a Promoted Tweet, including auto-response offering runners the chance to get a personalized T-shirt. Adidas Spain urged people to mention the brand and share why they deserved a finisher T-shirt, using the hashtag #WHYIRUNMADRID.
Also, Adidas Spain used Twitter targeting solutions directed at two different audiences. The brand managed to target users tweeting #WHYIRUNMADRID along with a second, broader audience of users following running accounts and living in Madrid.
The Result
The Twitter campaign helped Adidas Spain achieve a strong brand association amongst its Twitter audience. Their first stage of the campaign saw 2.4M impressions delivered by the voting card. During the second stage of the campaign, the brand saw over 1,000 customized virtual T-shirts being generated with 38,000 engagements and 5,000 mentions of the hashtag #WHYIRUNMADRID.
Bottom Line
Twitter is undeniably one of the best platforms for brands that seek to form personalized one-to-one connections with customers at scale. Also, it is one of the best platforms for launching new products. In fact, Twitter’s audience is so clued in that two out of every three non-Twitter users say that Twitter users are among the first to know the latest news and information. With a combination of various features like Direct Message Chatbot, First View, and Promoted Trend, Twitter can turn into a potent marketing tool. All you need to do is have a solid strategy about how you can leverage it.