CAMPAIGNS

Glossier Went Back to the Cinema Before Any of Us

Glossier’s latest campaign is the opposite of Taylor Swift’s T-shirt in her “22” music video—it definitely has “a lot going on at the moment.” 

The beauty industry disruptor is celebrating its signature “Lash Slick” mascara’s success with a campaign centered around positive reviews-turned-UGC. Look out for those reviews…

• In a series of “movie trailers”—running both digitally and on TV—starring celebs like Saturday Night Live’s Ego Nwodim and improv actor Catherine Saint Siena 
• And out of home (OOH) installations on marquees and poster boards at nine indie movie theaters in cities like NYC and LA

Each trailer tells a short story inspired by a real-life product review, spanning genres like romcom and anime, with the faux movies being promoted outside said theaters.

Big (moving) picture: While we’re major SNL fans here at the Brew, it’s the movie theater strategy that caught our eyes. What gave Glossier the idea to seek out cinema billboards as an OOH platform?

We chatted with Glossier SVP of Marketing Ali Weiss to find out

Just as we suspected—the entire “Lash Slick: The Movie” campaign was inspired by the OOH opportunity. 

• “One of our directors of marketing was brainstorming about new media ideas for this period of time. And it occurred to her that this would be a really exciting opportunity,” Weiss told Marketing Brew.  
• Glossier was specifically excited to “partner and support businesses that were struggling” during the pandemic while simultaneously furthering its marketing goals. 

Zoom out: Crafting an entire omnichannel campaign around a creative OOH opportunity might seem surprising…if not for some recent data: 

• 45% of 2,058 US adults reported noticing OOH advertising more than they did pre-pandemic, per a Q4 2020 Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) survey.
• Targeting major cities like NYC and LA for the OOH placements makes sense, too—a separate survey conducted by OAAA in January found that 55% of adults living in cities with more than one million people are noticing more OOH messaging today, as compared to 41% of the general population. 

Bottom line: As the weather gets warmer (and vaccinations continue), more people will presumably venture outside—aka where movie theaters live. Glossier is taking advantage of that. 

If you want to know more about Glossier’s OOH strategy, click here to read the full piece.

SOCIAL STRATEGY

Shrimp Toast

Enough ink has been spilled on how gross Cinnamon Toast Shrimp was and how awkward the brand’s response was, but here at Marketing Brew, we wanted to know what General Mills’s strategy should have been.

What went down 

Reminder: After the initial post, Cinnamon Toast Crunch sent a tweet that will likely be studied for years, claiming that the objects in question weren’t shrimp tails, but “an accumulation” of sugar. Sure.

The next day, the brand started playing the blame game, tweeting that the incident didn’t happen at its facility. But by then, General Mills’s credibility had been shot. 

Crisis crunch

We don’t know who’s behind those tweets, and General Mills didn’t respond to our request for an interview. But we asked two crisis communications experts to share how the brand could’ve handled the debacle.

• “What happened to ‘The customer is always right’? Absolutely the wrong move to question what he’s seeing,” said Mark Pasetsky, founder of PR firm Mark Allen & Co.
• Eric Dezenhall, CEO of Dezenhall Resources, said the brand should’ve done “as little as possible” on social, taking its response offline instead. "You can’t win, you can only lose by less,” he said.

What’s next? “I’m a believer in admitting you’re wrong,” said Pasetsky, who pitched free cereal for life as a make-good. Last night the brand tweeted a thank you to the aggrieved customer, but not an apology for whatever happened to his cereal.

SPONSORED BY ADOBE

The Data Knows

To all those peeps who dismiss data-driven marketing as paint-by-number nonsense, listen up: Data-driven marketing is oh so much more than just metrics and retargeting.

And if you allow Adobe to wax data-driven marketing poetic at you, then you’ll understand why.

Adobe has digitally penned an e-book to help you “Level Up Your Data-Driven Marketing Game.” See what we did there? Worked the title right into the sentence. Pretty sweet.

You know what else is pretty sweet? All the helpful know-how you’ll learn in Adobe’s e-book. Bring in the bullet points! You’ll discover...

• How to assess the maturity of your data-driven marketing strategy
• The four key benefits that come with properly implemented data-driven marketing
• How to understand the different levels of data usage

Thank you, bullet points. And thank you, Adobe, for the mad marketing knowledge which you can read here.

DIVERSITY

Dove Steps Up

Dove is putting its money where its mouth is. And the mouths of other brands, too.

How? For its latest campaign, Dove is asking brands to consider its diverse pool of models when casting for ads in South Africa. It’s also offering to cover the costs of modeling fees if a competitor does end up booking one.

• So far, brands like Magnum (owned, like Dove, by Unilever) and Krispy Kreme have taken Dove up on the offer.

Behind the scenes

Dove’s campaign is focused on perceptions of beauty in media, specifically the lack of diversity in advertising. 

The initiative is laudable, but only addresses one side of the coin. The advertising industry still has a long way to go when it comes to hiring and promoting agency talent from underrepresented backgrounds.

Pamala Buzick is COO of Free The Work, an organization that advocates for underrepresented creators. She called Dove’s initiative “commendable,” but noted that the beauty brand is “specifically talking about diverse talent in front of the camera” with this campaign. 

“It’s what sells, it’s what you see in the magazines,” she told Marketing Brew. “Talking about trying to find new, diverse talent behind the lens isn't always as sexy as talking about talent in front of the lens.”

Bottom line: Brands and agencies should be investing in diverse talent behind the scenes and on-air.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Ikea tapped Linus Karlsson as its very first chief creative officer. 
• Facebook, Google, and Twitter headed to Washington for yet another Big Tech Congressional hearing yesterday. The topic this time? Misinformation. 
• Peeps are popping (peeping?) up in many a brand partnership ahead of Easter, from Pepsi to Crocs.
• Dollar Shave Club laid off its Mel Magazine staff, so the publication is now looking for a buyer. 

SPONSORED BY ITERABLE

How DoorDash unlocked the door to success. Join Gina Igwe, Senior Director of CRM at DoorDash, at Activate Live, where she’ll be dishing out the details on how brands can use personalization to deliver individualized customer experiences. Learn the all-encompassing business strategy that led DoorDash to the third-largest IPO in history. Register today. 

FRENCH PRESS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren't those.

Audio: From Clubhouse to Alexa, the beginner’s guide to voice marketing is here. 

Pinterest: If you know Marketing Brew, you know we love an overlooked social media platform—that’s why we’re gently suggesting you take a look at the 23 Pinterest statistics that matter most to marketers in 2021. 

TV: This is how to approach 2021’s upfront season, according to Stacy Daft, Amobee’s GM of enterprise commercial business development. 

Tell your story: Brightcove’s reliable and scalable video platform connects audiences with your brand to drive revenue, engage customers, build pipeline, and more. Brands like Adobe and MasterClass use Brightcove to tell powerful stories—start telling yours here.*

*This is sponsored advertising content

METRICS & MEDIA

Stat: 49% of consumers say they’re into the whole “brand activism” thing, while 17% have a negative view and 34% feel neutral, per Piplsay research cited in Marketing Dive. 

Quote: “Why are there shrimp tails in my cereal?”—the question everyone was asking this week. 

Read: Our older sibling Retail Brew wrote about Anthropologie’s digital-only catalog on Pinterest—and it’s a great case study on what brands can do with the evolving platform when they think outside the board box.

ICYMI

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Roku built a branded content studio to pitch advertisers on streaming’s unique opportunities
• The Krispy Kreme vaccine card promo: Would it work for your brand?
• Agency folks: Here’s where you’ll actually be working come 2022