The Pepperspective

The Concept & Strategy

Two and a half months ago, a small creative team started our concept and strategy session for Kirkland’s Q1 Facebook Promo. The goal of the promo was to generate 200,000 new fans in 28 days for Kirkland’s Facebook fan page. If you can imagine, more than seven people in a room yelling out ideas on top of each other back-to-back. One-after-one, we sliced and diced ideas that were too crazy and ideas that weren’t crazy enough. At redpepper, we like to be as edgy as our clients allow and test the demographics of our client’s consumer base as much as possible.

A recent AdAge poll asks “Do you think marketing-services firms should avoid the word ‘agency’?”

With the poll still in progress 73% of people who have answered the question chose “embrace it” as their answer. Several felt compelled to leave a comment. One man named John, who obviously was of the minority who feel the term “ad agency” should be avoided, left the following comment along with his vote.

On April 18th, 2011, Kirkland’s appeared at the top of Media Logic’s top 10 list of fastest growing brands on Facebook for the week of April 10th.

If you’ve ever played the limbo game, you know that the bar can only go so low before it becomes impossible to get under it. The amount of space beneath the limbo bar eventually becomes so compact that it is impossible for any human to pass under it without other body parts besides their feet touching the ground.

Now let’s look to a different bar.

The objective of one of our latest projects with Red Kap was clear – get more facebook likes. Other than that, our path was wide open. It was the perfect opportunity to develop a facebook promo that would achieve the objective at hand and try something new for us at the same time.

Client: Magnolia Pediatrics

Project: “Let’s Grow” Printed Brochure*

Objective: Design an informative printed piece for new and expectant mothers that sets Magnolia apart.

Result: Using Magnolia’s tag line “Personal care from bud to blossom” as inspiration, the natural direction for the project was a playful brochure in the form of an illustrated growth chart to provide new mothers with something that would be informative and functional.

*Silver ADDY Award Winner

So…I went to a conference last week put on by the good folks at NRF (National Retail Federation - not NRA, much to my husband’s disappointment). The Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference. Sounds like a good place for us to be since we consider ourselves to be innovative. And we have a retail client. And it was indeed a good place to be. Found out lots of cool new things, like:

-SoLoMo - Social/Location/Mobile - as in, “what’s your brand’s SoLoMo strategy?”

-P-comm; F-comm; M-comm - as in, Personalized commerce/Facebook commerce/Mobile commerce. The multi-channel shopper is here to stay, folks.

-Curating is the hottest trend in flash sales - as in, find some talented tastemakers and let them offer your products to your customers and call it curating.

-One-line Strategy - rather than online vs offline. Need to start thinking of things as ‘one line’ - that’s how your customer sees them - one company - one line.

-ROI - the “R” doesn’t just mean money any more - hallelujah! The return can come in some intangible forms and CMO’s said that was o.k. with them! Promise?!

-Reciprocity is the thing - in social media relationships, as in, you gotta give a little something to get a little something from your fans. And again, this doesn’t have to always be in the form of money - can we get an Amen on this too!

Too much to cover in one post. Stay tuned for more. Let me know if one of these topics sounds interesting to you and I can write about that one a bit more. Innovate - or die!

Client: Kirkland’s

Project: Cha—-Ching! Ident

Objective: Create a visual language for Kirkland’s Spring Facebook promotion, Cha-Ching!

Result: Referencing terminal flipboard and analog alarm clock lettering, we created a textual counter.

“Yeah, it was a good game. What did you think of the Best Buy spot?”
“What Best Buy spot?”
“The one with Ozzy and Justin Bieber.”
“Oh, that was a Best Buy ad? I thought it was stupid.”

So, we wanted to share a personal and authentic story of a student that completed the Trevecca Adult Degree Completion Program. As we poured through many stories of students who had gone back to school and finished their degree, we realized that we kept coming back to Becky’s story.

This is a video chronicle of redpepper’s work in promoting Stop the Candy Shop, a film that exposes the horrors of child sex trafficking by telling a gripping parable set in a Depression-era candy shop. Our goal was to create an engaging adver-art that could both serve as an interactive public event and also mobilize supporters to vote for the film in the Doorpost Film Project competition. If selected, all winnings – $100,000 – will go directly to Street Grace, a nonprofit fighting to eliminate the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Stop the Candy Shop represents the spearhead of an Atlanta-wide, and possibly nationwide, campaign.

By voting for and sharing this film, you may be saving the life of somebody’s daughter.

thedoorpost.com/vote/

Kirkland’s sparkliest spokesperson, Merry the Gift Fairy, is really busy these days. Not only has she been doling out free shopping sprees and surprise giveaways, she’s also spreading cheer on Twitter by sharing random tidbits of holidayness with complete strangers. Just some of the words of “wisdom” Merry has passed along:

“The best way to wrap a gift is with plenty of love. (Although a big red bow is pretty nice too.”

“Did someone say, ‘Christmas spirit?’ Those are my two favorite words!”

“Anyone who says holiday shopping isn’t a sport is obviously not trying hard enough.”

“Shopping tip of the day: Carry lots of sugar cookies in your purse and you won’t have to stop to eat.”

The DP was gracious enough to work weekends to get this cut so that followers of rp could learn how to make their own Merry the Gift Fairy campaign.

Real shoppers caught on video being surprised with a FREE Christmas shopping spree from Kirkland’s and Merry the Gift Fairy, all part of our newest campaign. 

There’s something about Merry - People relate to characters and other people more than they do an ambiguous brand.

As part of the Kirkland’s 2010 Holiday marketing effort, the Glee Spree campaign is designed to position Kirkland’s as an ideal place to buy gifts during and outside of the holiday season.