pH7 Communications - Consumer Products Campaign of the Year

Company: pH7 Communications
Company Description: pH7 Communications is an agile strategic communication agency in China. Founded in Shanghai and with a branch in Guangzhou, pH7 quickly adapts to new challenges and embraces new ideas. In the past two years, pH7 has been the recipient of over 15 awards for innovation in marketing communication.
Nomination Category: Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Marketing - Consumer Products

Nomination Title: Vans Encourages Creative Expression Among Chinese Pets Lovers with #PetCustoms

Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched: Campaign Period: Jan 25, 2021– Feb 19, 2021

Background

1.Vans Customs, the exclusive product segmentation to fulfill consumers’ personalized needs.During the occasion of Chinese New Year(CNY), Vans encourages Chinese youth to customize unique shoes by uploading pets photos or selecting pets patterns.

2. Vans’ brand DNA of encouraging creative expression has been well received by existing young Chinese consumers, however, how to expand to new communities and creative brand preference has been a challenge for Vans.

Finding

1.Chinese New Year (CNY)is the time of year Chinese are most willing toshare blessing or goodwill campaign on social platforms.
2.‘FU’ AR scan is a proven effective social interaction as CNY tradition since 2018 in China.
3.Youngsters love to have distinctive itemsthat speak their identity withcreative expression.
4.The pet industry has been experiencing explosive growthworldwide:Due to the low marriage rate and long working hours, many youngsters have shifted their emotional bonding from family to their pets. The spending and preference figure go higher when a product is associated with pets.
5.Mostyoung females prefer to discuss and research animal print-related products online.“Pet” is an always-on hot social topic on various social platforms.

Challenge

1.Vans Customs platform is relatively less-known comparing to Vans’ other products.
2.Vans Customs breaks the color limitation of traditional customization which also increased the difficulty of participation.

Objective

1.Strengthen public recognition and interest of Vans Customs.
2.Grow UGCs participation in Vans Customs.
3.Drive traffic to Vans Customs sales during CNY.

Creatvie
Creative campaign theme of #伸爪就VANS# (#stretch out your paws)

1.Stretching out paws is a daily interactive action for people and their pets to bond, which can ealiy arouse interest of pet lovers.
2.Meanwhile, as a call-for-action social topic, it triggered consumers to experience the Vans Customs platform and WeChat Red Envelope engagement during CNY.

Strategy

1.Select interest-oriented female community platformRedbookaskey social media.
a)over 300 million users and about 70% of its users are females born after 1990.

2.Use different content angles to engage three consumer pillars:​
a)Pet owners – encourage them to print their pets on their shoes and showcase them on social platforms.
b)Pet lovers – guide them to choose the pet patterns they love and customize their shoes.
c)Trend followers –trigger them to follow the campaign by fashion influencers’styling with Pet Customs shoes.

3.Leverage the CNY Red Envelop tradition to increase campaign impression through WeChat AR scan engagement.

Activities

Refer to the attached video.

Results
1.Impressive media coverage & brand followers’ response:
a)The campaign reached 80.1M impression, and 1.5M engagement in total.
b)Leveraged 2 celebrities, 5 famouse pet-stars, 40 influencers, and 30+ free-pitched influencers to harvest 81 high engagement content which further received over 830 UGC submissions on social & e-commence platforms.
c)The keyword research of ‘Vans Customs’ increased 8% compared with last year on e-commence platform.
d)The ranking of keyword ‘Vans Customs’ search on Redbook increased from the 4thto the 2ndplace.
e)WeChat Red Envelope engagement reached 47M clicks with 2M redemption (21.5 times compared with average WeChat Red Envelope engagement).

2.Outrageous business contribution:
a)Customs Order reached 8,464, and Vans e-commence sales increased more than300% compare before the campaign.
b)VansChina WeChat followers increased 362,000 users, 805% growth compared with monthly average growth.
c)New registers of the brand website increased by 732,000, 4,775% growth compared before the campaign.

3.Vans toned upits creative expression brand image among a new specific young groupwho love pets.