While we’re always working to deliver solid, fresh ideas for our clients, one of the best parts of the holiday season is that we get to have a little bit of fun thinking out of the box for our more festive projects.
This year, once again, we wanted to share some humor and holiday joy with you, our friends and clients that have made 2015 such an incredible year for us. In our first year, our Elf on the Shelf came to life. Last year, our Elf showed you how to take an Elfie. And this year, we’re excited to bring you… ADELF.
We had a lot of fun producing this parody — but we went the extra mile and held a Fresh Ideas Challenge among our RockStars, too. Everyone took key scenes from the video and created some pretty funny memes. It was a true roller coaster of emotion — from the awkward, to the heartbreaking, to the hilarious. Take a look below!
Join in on the fun by making some memes of your own and use #AdelfontheShelf!
Supply Chain Services (SCS), a company that provides customized purchasing and supply chain solutions to companies in the hospitality, food, retail and service industries, approached RockOrange with a challenge many companies face: does your brand tell a powerful story?
The best brand stories are those that are compelling, emotional, and proactive. Often, they just need to be simple so that the target audience can connect with it. SCS wasn’t telling its brand story in a way that helped them differentiate themselves from competitors or communicate the achievements of their seasoned team. As a result, they weren’t generating the buzz and awareness they wanted among their target market.
RockOrange worked closely with SCS to craft a more inspiring story that will humanize their brand and make it more consumer-friendly by simplifying their message. Their initial messaging utilized a lot of industry jargon that was confusing for the general audience.
We knew that their content had to change drastically so anyone could understand the work they do. But content was just the beginning. We needed to take an integrated approach to completely rebrand them in order to accomplish their goal.
First, we created a tagline for SCS that summarized the message they wanted their audience to walk away with: “Leave it to Us.” SCS’ main message to their clients is that they don’t have to worry about anything, because the company will work as an extension of their team through collaborative efforts. With a relationship with more than 300 suppliers, SCS helps companies develop the supply chain strategy that best fits their unique business goals, including purchasing, contract negotiation, distribution and logistics, and global sourcing and fulfillment solutions.
Second, we revamped the look and feel of their website and worked with our digital and creative team to make some magic. The website is the most important tool any brand can have. If it seems difficult to understand or navigate, then you’ve lost your audience, and you are most definitely losing out on business. Along with the website makeover, we also created a manual to help them manage it long-term.
As we gave the site a new look, we worked closely with SCS to schedule a photo shoot that would allow us to convey a more collaborative and consumer-friendly attitude through imagery. A picture really does say a thousand words, and we needed to make sure those words were fresh and aligned with the new messaging.
And finally, the hardest step: simplifying ALL of their content to make it rock solid. Let us tell you, that was one heck of a challenge but we LOVED it! We made it easy for anyone to understand their services: what they do and how they can help businesses. The best part? They now get to leverage the new foundation we have laid out for other projects, including digital and social media efforts.
We leave it up to you to judge our work. Check out SCS’ new website and let us know what you think!
Target was hoping its latest designer collection launch, Lilly Pulitzer, would drop without a hitch. Instead, the collaboration between the big box retailer and brightly colored fashion label was more reminiscent of another Target tog team-up.
Remember back in 2011 when high-end Italian house Missoni launched a Target line? Back then, the retailer — which earned its spot atop the big box brand zeitgeist through sharp purchasing choices that allow it to appear just un-Walmart enough to retain chic cred — failed to stock its shelves with enough product to satisfy the out of control demand. Target.com crashed, items sold out and some stores weren’t stocked.
Fast forward this past Sunday when the Pulitzer-frenzy caused people to line up outside of Target’s across the country in a scene that seemed more Black Friday than April Sunday.
Within 3-5 minutes, the Pulitzer collection was sold out both in store and online, with many calling it more of a “flash sale” where consumers fought for the West Palm Beach designer’s signature shift dresses, swimsuits, home décor, etc. a la Hunger Games.
The retailer garnered tons of press prior to the collection’s launch, building anticipation with its television commercials featuring celebrities, its social media campaign, and a remarkable activation at Bryant Park in New York last week. All this hype and yet many consumers were not able to purchase items. This type of bad experience tends to alienate consumers, and social media only helps to amplify their concerns.
Social media gives disappointed and angry consumers a microphone. Research indicates that customers typically tell twice as many people about a bad experience with customer service than they do about a good one.
The hashtag #LillyforTarget trended on Twitter on Sunday – both with positive and negative commentary. Consumers complained about Target’s website and how it had slowed down and crashed temporarily. They shared photos of empty racks at Target and the long lines they endured. To add insult to injury, many of the items became available on eBay for twice the price in a few hours.
When you look at the numbers, it was a success, not to mention all the great PR the brand is getting these days, but Target may have sacrificed customer satisfaction. It increases sales and it also continues to solidify Target’s cool, trendy and affordable positioning.
Target spokesman Joshua Thomas told Fortune in an e-mailed statement: “Due to heavy traffic, we experienced slowness to our site, resulting in an inconsistent experience for our guests. We realize there is an extreme amount of excitement around this collaboration, and we apologize for any disappointment this may have caused our guests.”
The question to be asked is: Do programs like this one, which create social relevance, end up alienating consumers? If so, will fewer shoppers brave the madness for the next Target collaboration, simply to avoid the disappointment?
Consider the role brands play around events like the Oscars or the Super Bowl. It’s clear that you can spend millions of dollars in commercials, and still your campaign can be outdone by a single, simple tweet.
We only need to look back a couple of years and remember Super Bowl XLVII, when — shortly after Beyoncé killed her halftime set — the power went out in The Superdome and Oreo seized the moment.
It proved to be one of the most memorable branded tweets ever, particularly because it filled an unexpected vacuum that arose during a night when brands famously spend millions of dollars on a few seconds of airtime. It was a quick, nimble, and cost-effective piece of marketing. Oreo set the bar for brands to engage with consumers during high-profile live events.
Since then, many have tried to replicate that shine on Twitter and Facebook. Among them, DiGiorno — who could forget how, later that year, they caused a Twitter storm live-tweeting NBC’s “The Sound of Music Live”?
Big brands have realized the importance of being on high alert during big events like these. Both Twitter and Facebook function as a forum for users to come together and comment, making for valuable tools of influence over the years. They’ve become indispensable elements of the viewer’s experience, a true “second screen experience.”
Last month, Lady Gaga “won” the Oscars and the Internet thanks to social media. Twitter said her Little Monsters generated the highest number of tweets per minute during the show, while Facebook estimates there were 214,000 Gaga-related interactions globally during her breathtaking performance. Lego also had a big night, even though “The Lego Movie” was snubbed. The brand garnered 47,290 mentions on Twitter alone during the Oscars — thanks to a rendition of the movie’s theme, “Everything is Awesome,” which was, appropriately, pretty awesome. It wasn’t nearly as huge as last year’s epic selfie with Ellen DeGeneres, but impressive nonetheless.
All this is to say, brands that are serious about their future need to be serious about social media. As we’ve said in the past, you have to go where consumers are congregating, so when we build a strategy for a client, it’s essential to bake in a social game plan. Social media is an incredible, powerful machine, and those brands that leverage it wisely can quickly rise above the noise. It’s more than just an afterthought. Ignore it at your own peril.
When our new client, Macy’s, and our longtime client, singer/songwriter/author and all-around-superstar Thalia, both approached RockOrange about activating a fashion line, we saw an opportunity to make history.
RockOrange was engaged to drum up US Hispanic media interest for the launch of Thalia Sodi, the Mexican icon’s clothing line with Macy’s, through an intimate, short lead media event. The collection officially launches in early-February at 300 Macy’s stores nationwide (and on macys.com) and was inspired by Thalia’s personal style. The line features bold colors and animal prints in dresses, tops, pants, shoes and jewelry, all designed to make women feel comfortable, confident and beautiful.
The collection is beautiful, and we needed an activation strategy to match. RockOrange envisioned a high fashion event of live looks for an intimate crowd of media, with the added dimension of giving access to a virtual crowd made up of Thalia’s fans.
It all came together at Gold Bar in New York’s Little Italy, where an exclusive, invitation-only soiree was held for select media. Those in attendance, who included all major US Hispanic networks, the Associated Press, People en Español, and many more, came in out of the cold to get a front-row seat for hot new styles.
But media was just the beginning. In a social media first, we coordinated the debut to stream live on Thalia’s Facebook account where it promptly broke the Internet (ok, not really, but the traffic was still huge). Together, we made history. Fans from around the world tuned in to watch the live feed of the show, and continued to stream it with more than 3 million viewers to-date.
The activation was a drop-dead success on all levels. As the first ever Hispanic-backed exclusive clothing line at the quintessential department store, the Facebook runway reveal also became the first of its kind in the history of the ubiquitous social network. The launch was one of the largest in Macy’s history.
And, let me just say, I love this project as a case study for what we do, because we satisfied all manner of requests and work types in one job. From digital to outreach to on-site event management and production, we brought together so many of our key capabilities into a multi-directional campaign that hit all the right notes for the client.
That’s because RockOrange, if I can be a bit self promotional – and this is our own blog, so I can – is a value-adding agency. We aren’t just order-takers. We are an organization built on ideas and execution. With every client, and especially these two, we develop creative, innovative solutions that break down walls.
In this case, we broke down the walls separating Thalia’s fans from a first look at her latest endeavor. Both clients won big, and RockOrange put another idea and execution firmly in the “fresh” column.
