Marketing Campaign Execution, Chanel Nr. 5

On the past months we have been exposed to a massive advertising campaign launched by Coco Chanel to promote its top of the line and historical fragrance, Chanel No. 5. I saw it for the first time during Christmas walking through London’s shopping district. Streets were invaded by Brad Pitt’s face. I thought, henceforth, that the firm was launching for the first time a perfume focused on the men segment. 

This interesting used of advertising got mi attention so I went to the first high end department store that I found on my way and asked a Chanel’s shop assistant if that product was for men. Promptly she told me that it wasn’t a product for gents that it was targeted for the female market.

At this point, I was confused. So I decided to search online more about the reasons behind this advertisement and later on analyse with a strategic marketing point of view if it was right or wrong. Certainly, the campaign has been extremely controversial among the marketing community and the general public. Most of the people have been extremely critical and superficial studying its meaning. Personally I think that it’s one of those brilliant ideas, where the marketing team finds a great insight, develops a good message, but, somewhere down the road the message gets distorted. From my perspective this happened because of an inadequate communication    

 between the firm and its advertising agency  i.e. they were at cross purposes

The insight behind the ad is about “women’s spirit” seeing through the eyes of men, says Brad Pitt. For me this insight has a deep and meaningful message. Perfumes’ first trace back to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian era. It was used for religious and cosmetic purposes. Also, it is believed that the Egyptian queen Cleopatra used special fragrances, which helped her to enchant Julius Caesar and afterwards Mark Anthony. This triangle between women, perfume and men has existed since time immemorial. Brad Pitt’s argument explains that perfume help men revive in their mind memories of their beloved women and impeccable insight!

The problem came when the advertising agency decided to have Brad Pitt as the central figure of the ad. The advert’s director got lost with Brad Pitt’s halo rather than to expose clearly the message to the final consumer. Even though this was a big misinterpretation of the message the buzz around the ad has been huge, nowadays, more than 7,669,969 people have seen the commercial on YouTube. This helps Chanel to increase its brand awareness, relevance and maybe differentiation among consumers. Finally, to evaluate Chanel Nr.5 campaign’s performance we’ll have to wait until Chanel releases its quarterly financial report.

From a marketing perspective I can concluded that the most important thing in a marketing plan is to communicate effectively your brand message. Everything else is just minor tweaks on the master piece. This is what I missed in Chanel Nr.5 advertising campaign. 

“It's not a journey. Every journey ends, but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear. Dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are. My luck, my fate, my fortune. Chanel No. 5. Inevitable.”

Tiffany’s an effective social media strategy through Twitter

Tiffany’s is a club that started operating 2 years ago in Madrid. They have used a very effective promotional strategy to position its product as one of the most recognized clubs in Madrid, among the 18-25 year old trendy and posh segment of Madrid.

On September 22nd evening I was passing just in front of Tiffany’s and I got such a surprise, the entrance of the place was packed with very young and well-dressed people between the ages of 14-18 trying to get inside. Consequently, I asked myself some questions, such as: how did the club attract so many people? How did it gather together such a homogeneous group in the same place at the same time?  And what promotional channel the business used to attract this segment?

To start with, I identified that the best promotional channel to boost this kind of events was through social media platforms, mainly because its customer base is full of youngster and it can be used as a hyper targeted promotional method. Therefore, I made a research on Facebook and Tuenti and to my amazement the night club did not have any presence on these channels. Afterwards, I checked Twitter only to verify that they were not using this tool. I thought that people interested on micro blogging was an older audience with the aim of being up to date in real time about news and businesses. Thus to my surprise Tiffany’s was using Twitter 

as its main promotional method to attract its target 

segment to its business. The club follow up around 

2.000 people and 1.400 people follow it.

Henceforth Tiffany’s in order to implement its promotional campaign identified its target segment very well (i.e. students from the best schools of the city). The next step was to attract some students from these schools to become PR representatives of the club. Afterwards, they did on Twitter a massive follow-up of the representative’s friends and students from these schools. Also, during this process mentioned above the club start publishing content that was appealing to potential customers and make a clear call to action. Tiffany’s still after the launching effect still publish interesting facts and information of future events to retain its customers and create a loyal customer base. If important to highlight the fact that any company that invest in social media platforms should be completely confident of its efficiency because is a long term commitment, customer’s relationship is not build for one day to another. It needs time to manage and create appealing content and firms should be consistent in their communication and in keeping the relationship going with consumers.

The launching event attracted more than 2.000 youngsters. Therefore, this is a very good example of how to promote an event through social media platforms. With the use of hyper targeted techniques and a good mix of the appropriate advertising and promotion with the aim of connecting with its target market. This case shows the potential of using social media for businesses, not only as a tool to create awareness among its audience. Whereas to increase its numbers of potential customers and consequently translate this investment into sales.