Earlier this year, Juicy Couture embarked on a captivating Valentine's Day campaign aimed at rekindling nostalgia among devoted Juicy enthusiasts, while simultaneously attracting new brand followers. Unlike conventional social campaigns that prioritise the consumer experience, influencer marketing agency Buttermilk devised a unique strategy that centred on the influencer journey from inception to completion.
The campaign commenced by sending personalised invitations to select creators, inviting them to venture into "Juicyland" and encouraging them to embody the experience in their own creative ways. By granting these micro-influencers creative freedom and allowing their individual personalities to shine, the campaign sought to generate authentic and meaningful content that resonated deeply with their audiences.
The outcome of this strategic move was exceptionally successful. By collaborating with a blend of both micro and macro influencers, the campaign remarkably surpassed engagement benchmarks on TikTok, achieving an impressive 6% average engagement rate and garnering 109k clicks—a staggering 172% increase from the initial Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Notably, the campaign also achieved an outstanding 98% positive sentiment, indicating an overwhelmingly positive response from the audience. With a massive outreach of 12 million impressions, the campaign exceeded its predetermined KPIs by a remarkable 130%.
Juicy Couture's innovative approach to leveraging micro-influencers proved to be a masterstroke. By embracing the creators' unique perspectives and enabling them to craft their own narratives, the brand successfully rekindled the love among its loyal fanbase and attracted a new generation of devoted Juicy followers, ensuring the continued relevance and appeal of the iconic brand.
To learn more, we spoke to Isabella Treacy, Senior Campaign Manager at Buttermilk.
What was the brief?
Buttermilk’s brief was to drive relevancy for Juicy Couture’s Viva La Juicy Core Fragrance, the priority objective was to increase reach and consideration among the brands target consumer on TikTok.
Juicy Couture Fragrance wanted to capture the ‘Ultimate Juicy Girl’ – between 18-30 years old, someone who is a fragrance fanatic and up to date with all the latest trends & pop-culture news.
Juicy Couture Fragrance was seeking a new influencer marketing strategy to ignite excitement for the brand and create maximum impact.
How did the initial pitch/brainstorming phase go?
Our creative ideation was received incredibly well, the brand was completely on board with our campaign strategy and execution plan. Beyond this, we built a condensed organic and paid media plan, ensuring each phase was seamlessly integrated.
What was the process behind ideating the concept?
To encourage optimal creativity and innovation, we wanted our creators to immerse themselves in the world of Juicy Couture. To capture their interpretation of the brand, we curated Juicyland - a land where creators can run wild with their imagination to celebrate the Viva La Juicy fragrance. After all, the fragrance embodies self-expression and honours individuality so it was integral that our concept represents exactly that.
Juicyland is designed to emphasise all aspects of Juicy Couture's values and branding - think bright, bold & lot’s of pink! We briefed creators with a variety of interests such as dance, beauty, comedy & lifestyle to authentically connect the target consumer with the fragrance.
In addition to this, we positioned this campaign to go live around Valentine’s Day, to use the timely relevance of gifting a loved one, as an additional creative hook.
What was the production process like?
We wanted Juicyland to hypothetically ‘open its gates’ from the second we onboarded our pool of influencers, we had personal invites and brand packages to greet the influencers at their front door.
We recruited credible voices to represent the Viva La Juicy fragrance and spearhead the campaign. Each creator was carefully selected against a metric criteria (ER% ,VR%, Audience insight) as well as content creation expertise.
We identified a multi-tiered selection of influencers, with a blend of macro and micro audiences, to provide authoritative endorsement and to tap into highly engaged audiences.
Influencers were briefed to personify the extraordinary world through creativity; be bold, be unapologetic & channel their true Viva La Juicy self. Each creator built their individual story line around their current interests (eg. dance, beauty, fashion) which helped maintain a level of authenticity in all content.
Once the content was live we used sophisticated audience targeting strategies to effectively drive traffic to e-commerce, through paid amplification on TikTok.
What was the biggest challenge during production? How did you overcome it?
Timelines! January can quickly become a very busy month, especially when everyone’s getting back into the flow after the Christmas season. We faced a few challenges with creators requiring extra time for content creation, therefore timelines were pushed by a day or two. As we worked with 16 creators it was inevitable that busy content creation schedules could work against our plan.
But to overcome this, the secret is to plan ahead and time block with influencers. We shared an overview of deadlines in December to help map out expectations, ensuring we can meet our live period of Valentine’s Day.
What kit/tools/software were used to create the project?
We use an array of tools to support project management & workflows such as Monday.com. Our internal campaign management software is also fantastic at organising content and actioning client feedback.
Other than that, it all comes down to our award-winning team to expertly execute the project.
What is one funny or notable thing that happened during production?
This campaign struck a core childhood/teenage memory for many consumers. We had such an outstanding amount of positive sentiment and purchase intent from people re-discovering this fragrance.
Many audiences spoke about how this iconic fragrance used to be their go-to - we were blown away by the nostalgic power this fragrance holds!
What’s the main message of this project and why does it matter?
Self-expression was at the heart of this concept, we wanted all content to capture exactly what the fragrance resembles by allowing creators to express their own interpretation of Viva La Juicy. In turn, content is highly relevant and relatable for our target audience.
How long did it take from inception to delivery?
Approximately 4 months.
What do you hope it achieves for the brand?
We hope this campaign builds a new playful and expressive perspective for Viva La Juicy. We’ve engaged authentic brand ambassadors, to help generate conversation and excitement amongst new consumers and long-standing VLJ lovers.
Alongside this, our campaign also challenged creative boundaries, so we hope this shows the power of creative experimentation.
With that being said, we’ve been working on a new campaign to support the launch of the latest member of the Viva La Juicy fragrance group…so watch this space!
Credit list for the work?
Isabella Treacy - Senior Campaign Manager
Phoebe Clarke - Senior Campaign Executive
Robyn Holder - Senior Creative
Joanna Hutler - Paid Specialist
Ilektra Fotopoulou - Senior Brand Manager
