Ted Baker Increases Holiday Engagement With Instagram Game
For its new holiday campaign, the British fashion label invites consumers to follow a series of clues to find hidden elves in a "choose your own adventure" game on Instagram.
With Black Friday regarded as the official start of the holiday season, British retailer Ted Baker wasted no time in launching a new social media campaign this week.
Created by Poke, a London agency owned by Publicis Group, @TedsElfie is an Instagram account consisting of 30 images that add up mosaic-style to form one big picture of a lively ski mountain. Hidden somewhere within the digital winter wonderland are seven elves, the whereabouts of which users can discover with clues from the image’s captions or Ted Baker’s Twitter.
Users are sometimes instructed to tap on images, giving them a choice of links – to other Instagram accounts, similar mosaics that show the inside of cabins or ski lift lines, for example – to follow. Other times, they’re asked to leave a comment tagging someone for a chance to win Ted Baker merchandise. Whichever path users take, engagement is the clear intention of the campaign.
“The overall goal is to create something that evokes brand awareness and allows us to reward our loyal customers and Ted followers over the Christmas period,” a Ted Baker spokesperson says.
“[Instagram] is our most engaged channel and we think this is a great platform to launch something innovative as the platform evolves in the digital space,” the spokesperson continues.
Paige O’Neill, chief marketing officer at customer experience management platform SDL, agrees that Instagram is the best platform for this campaign because its inherently visual nature complements clothing. However, she still thinks it lacks a connection to Ted Baker.
“The magic of a social campaign happens when engagement drives a direct relationship to the brand elements you’re trying to invoke,” O’Neill says. Comparing the campaign to Topshop creating a searchable gift guide on Pinterest last year, she adds that most of the pictures within the mosaics lack any reference to the brand.
Despite her criticisms, O’Neill still finds the campaign very clever.
“I think [Ted Baker gets] really high marks for creativity,” she says. “It’s always interesting to see what consumer brands and retail brands are able to do to push the envelope in something like Instagram.”
The campaign will go on for three weeks, during which Ted Baker will periodically add more elves to find. The grand prizes include headphones and luggage from the brand, and trip to Kakslauttanen, a Finnish resort where winners can watch the Northern Lights from their own glass igloos.
Homepage image via Shutterstock.
