Unlike other recent eCommerce trends, he pandemic hasn’t created the lose-to-consumer commerce (C2CC) but it certainly has supercharged it. With time at home and on our hands, we have found new ways to buy, new ways to sell, new ways to recommend and share, driving the momentum of online shopping and eCommerce growth to new heights.
Close-to-consumer commerce can be a great strategy for your brand. Consumers are evolving, and factors like convenience, availability, entertainment, or recommendations, together with a powerful value proposition, are driving new brand purchases. Influencers and social selling expert roles have moved to include the Everyman. And as people look for authenticity, humanity and genuinity, the aspirational content should be removed from the equation (we do not believe in it anymore!)
In this context, with many brands competing in the digital ecosystem for the user’s attention, bringing the storefront closer to consumers has become on of the most essential eCommerce trends that are coexisting in the digital marketing landscape.
To add more spice to the mix, the journey is changing with the customer, becoming shorter, less linear and omnichannel. With a deep dive into what this means for the brand owner, we are connecting the dots between consumer and commerce and researching this new customer journey and how world class companies are digging into it to develop award winning campaigns.
Pepe Jeans Custom Studio: connecting stories with business
Pepe Jeans challenged us to create brand advocacy through creativity and personalisation. And we delivered, creating unique stickers to use on Instagram Stories to customise iconic denim pieces of clothing. Supported by live events in London, Berlin, Barcelona and Paris, the best creators were invited to see behind the scenes and watch the Pepe designers bring their visions to life.
The #CustomStudio campaign achieved 4.4m views of the digital stickers captured and the campaign generating 176,000 impressions a day. Allowing personalisation and co-creation led to advocacy with Pepe working with its audience to help spread its message and with the Pepe storefront always just one click away.
Bringing the storefront to the consumer
Verv began as a weight loss app, but broadened its service offering following an increased demand from consumers for guidance on other wellbeing areas such as sleep and nutrition.
The brand vision shifted to holistic wellbeing, and offers consumers a simple but customisable solutions, catering to the needs of the age of balance.
Creating a flagship store on WeChat’s environment
Nike wanted to connect more closely with its customers and make the commercial journey one step closer, they recreated the Nike store within the WeChat environment and took it one step further by integrating a number of features designed to provide exclusivity to its audience including access to events, a membership pass, and an ‘expert on demand’ service.
Not only did it appeal to their consumers and potential consumers by offering something ‘elite’, but Nike reaped the benefits of the data.
Utilising the power of the everyman to sell
Diesel knew that, when done right, the power of brand advocacy is endless. And who better to power your brand image than your community? Therefore they combined social and digital connection to harness their followers into their sales force.
Participants could apply through a public landing page and receive a unique URL to a Diesel online store linked to their personal account. When they shared that link, any purchases made through it earnt them discounts, rewards, and other exclusives from the brand. The genius lay in democracy – suddenly anyone could be an influencer.
