Ted Baker Brings the Circus to Town in #ZolTed
The #ZolTed campaign riffs on the circus theme featured in the brand’s Spring/Summer 2014 campaign and includes a circus character quiz and circus talent video challenge.
Fashion brand Ted Baker wants fans to step right up to its circus-themed microsite featuring the character of ZolTed, or what the brand calls “a traveling mystic and diviner of circus fortunes.”
Ted Baker’s #ZolTed campaign invites consumers to “discover their true circus character” by taking a personality quiz with multiple choice questions like, “You’ve arrived at a party by yourself, what do you do first?”
The quiz has 13 potential circus character outcomes, including a ringmaster, lion tamer, bearded lady, and fire eater.
“All customers can get engaged themselves and start to show what they’re made of,” says Craig Smith, Ted Baker’s global brand communication director. “The idea is that everyone’s inner circus character can be defined by a few questions.”
Upon completion of the quiz, users are also able to upload an image of their faces onto their circus characters and to share the resulting images, as well as to “dress their character” with pieces from Ted Baker’s spring and summer 2014 collection that have been curated for each character on separate pages.
The circus also happens to be the shoot location for Ted Baker’s spring and summer 2014 collection and the brand says #ZolTed helps it kick off its Get in on the Act campaign, which was shot with the Giffords Circus, a traditional small touring circus.
“We like the idea that people can break out of the mundane day to day and release some of their circus characters,” Smith says.
In addition, beginning March 7, Ted Baker says it started releasing the first of six short videos of circus talents, like hula-hooping and juggling.
The brand is asking fans to film themselves recreating each featured circus act and to share their own versions on Instagram. The first 50 to submit videos for each act using the hashtag #ZolTed and tagging @ted_baker will win a Ted Baker tote bag. All videos will live on a gallery on the campaign microsite.
The videos will be released over a two-week period with “a few days in between to digest,” Smith says.
Like the Get in on the Act campaign, each video was filmed on location with the performers of the Giffords Circus.
“We teamed up with Giffords because of unique home-spun vibe and unbelievable talent,” the brand writes in a blog post. “There’s a charm about Giffords that’s impossible to not love. Full belly laughs from the kids and adults alike make it one of our favorite theater experiences of last year.”
According to Smith, the campaign has a wide target.
“We don’t like to narrow our view, if you like,” Smith says. “It’s really a sort of mindset and attitude as opposed to age and demographic.”
Smith declined to provide figures for the number of participants so far.
However, as of publication time, about 120 Instagram posts had been tagged with #ZolTed and about 40 videos had been posted to the video gallery, along with more than 900 images in the ZolTed Photo Gallery.
Ted Baker has 54,000 followers on Instagram.
The brand also has more than 45,000 Twitter followers and more than 172,000 Facebook likes.
In addition, the brand says it will feature pop-up popcorn carts and photo opportunity cut-out boards at select stores in North America and the U.K.
#ZolTed participants will be entered for the chance to win a trip for two to Cirque du Soleil at the O2 Arena, including a three-night stay in London with round-trip travel.
