Kotex: A "Pin"spiring Campaign

As I’ve already established in my previous blog posts, many brands find success by developing social media campaigns that personally target consumers. Personalized campaigns allow brands to engage users and create a memorable experience for them. But how far should companies go to create these personalized messages? Well, that depends on the social media site being used and who the brand is trying to reach.

Pinterest is a fairly new social media site that’s been steadily growing in the past couple of years. For those that may not be familiar with it, the site allows users to collect images from around the web and “pin” them to boards. Users can follow each other to see what they’re posting and get ideas or inspiration for recipes, gifts, or other projects. Since it’s still relatively new, not many brands have explored or implemented Pinterest in their advertising campaigns. Except for Kotex, of course.

With the help of Israeli ad agency, Smoyz, Kotex developed a creative campaign called “Women’s Inspiration Day”. The company searched Pinterest to find 50 “inspiring” women that were active, influential users with large followings. After selecting these 50 women, the company then sent virtual gifts to all of them. If they pinned the gift, the company promised to send them a real gift based on something they had already pinned in the past. These gifts were original, handcrafted, and designed to appeal to each woman’s individual style. The gift box was beautifully presented and also featured a box of Kotex feminine products.

A closer look at Kotex's "Women's Inspiration Day" Campaign.

Much like anyone would react to a present, these women responded with surprise and delight. The women then posted photos of their real gifts to their Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles. Almost all of the 50 women posted photos of their gifts. In addition to this, they had 2,284 interactions and 694,853 total impressions. Not too bad for only reaching out to 50 women.

So why did this campaign work? Well, because it was one of the first Pinterest campaigns ever, the brand was able to reach out to users in a place that wasn’t already saturated with contests and promotions. The campaign also demonstrated that Kotex understood their target market. Because the majority of Pinterest users are female, it was logical to use the site to promote a feminine product. Although they only reached out to 50 women, they conducted enough research on each of them to ensure they all had a strong social media presence and a large following. This guaranteed that more than just each individual woman was exposed to the Kotex brand after they posted photos of it online. By giving these women personalized gifts, it was also a way of acting as a brand reminder. In the future, anytime they see these handmade gifts in their home, they will instantly be reminded of Kotex. While the campaign was costly and fairly labour intensive, it was well thought out, as the brand was able to create a memorable and personalized campaign that gained exposure across multiple social media platforms.  

While creating personalized messages on social media is an effective way for brands to become memorable, as Kotex proved, sending personalized gifts might be even better. The brand was able to take advantage of a platform that most companies have ignored and use it to reach their target market in a creative way. Due to the cost and effort put into each gift, I assume this will be a one-time campaign; however, the results demonstrated that Pinterest can be an equally effective social media site brands can use to run unique and inspiring campaigns.

Source: http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/guerrilla-marketing/kotexs-womens-inspiration-day-pinterest-campaign/