The Hallmark Ambassador Campaign included a series of influencer marketing flights for Hallmark at Walgreens during calendar 2016. We set out to remind target audiences that Walgreens is the place to go for all things Hallmark, with the primary focus across campaigns on greeting cards. The programs in this comprehensive influencer marketing series included:
The campaign was charged with driving brand awareness of Hallmark products at Walgreens during key seasons and everyday occasions while communicating to the various audience targets for Hallmark cards and merchandise that Hallmark has something for everybody – whether it's the perfect card, beautiful wrapping paper and gift bags, licensed ornaments or stylish gifts for the home. We wanted to show these audiences that Walgreens is always the most convenient location with the widest range of Hallmark products designed to help them connect with family and friends.
We also aimed to encourage audiences to contribute to the #HallmarkAtWalgreens conversation through social media engagement and generate excitement around various Hallmark cards and products.
Above all, the influencer flights in this campaign were charged with driving audiences in-store to Walgreens to purchase Hallmark products.
To build brand awareness and sales of Hallmark at Walgreens cards and merchandise, we designed a 7-flight comprehensive influencer campaign based around Hallmark's major product lines. This program set out to build long-term relationships between Hallmark and influencers whose audience demographics match those of the #HallmarkAtWalgreens target.
Our content marketing approach leveraged a targeted bundle of highly influential content creators who created and shared inspiring organic content. This connected target audiences to the range of Hallmark products and engaged influencers' networks across social channels. The program was supported through organic content such as blog posts, and social shares.
We used a 3-pronged approach:
1. Content Production
Blog posts featuring in-store and at-home experiences, social shares and coupon promotions.
2. Layered Syndication
Organic reach and engagement numbers showed us which content was performing the best. We then promoted this proven content across influencer networks and beyond utilizing paid media to further target the #HallmarkAtWalgreens customer demographic. This part of the campaign contributed significantly to our outsized results.
3. Social Activation
We utilized different social activations over different flights featuring themed prize packs.
Based on product and placement strategy, we engaged different influencers to reach audiences with different interests. These primary influencers encouraged audiences to incorporate featured Hallmark items in their own family lives by showcasing in-store social shops accompanied by long-form blog posts and organic social shares. These posts brought the products and occasions to life in their own homes and created relevance for their audiences. The Walgreens social shops also provided a clear path to purchase for audiences thus driving readers in-store to purchase their featured Hallmark items.
Video content provided a medium for influencers to show the products in a more interactive setting - effectively putting the product in motion and giving it dimensionality. This provided an engaging experience between the influencer and their audience.
In order to reach as much of the target demographic as possible, not only did we use a range of influencers with different content styles and audiences, but we also utilized paid boosting of top performing primary content on the influencers' own social channels. This further syndicated the proven content within the feeds of targeted audiences who had shown interest in relevant topics.
Content targeting was optimized based on initial performance – when we saw that engagement increased throughout the day, we ensured that most impressions were delivered later to further increase engagement.
Pretty standard influencer marketing so far – right? To ensure continued engagement, we partnered with an article syndication platform to distribute a unique story highlighting the Hallmark products and key messaging in newspapers (online and print) around the US. This further circulation of content allowed us to reach additional audiences and added significantly to the overall campaign results.
The Hallmark Ambassadors Campaign was extremely successful for both Hallmark and Walgreens with almost 300MM impressions (290.4MM) and a digital media value of 5.8x.
Additional notable results included:
The success of this campaign rests in the ambassador relationships developed with the influencers, the targeted boosting of proven primary content and the addition of article syndication to further enhance reach and engagement.
