Let it Snow Diamonds
What kind of marketing campaign costs very little but reaches thousands, perhaps millions of consumers? Viral marketing campaigns are a marketer’s dream because your audience spreads your message so you don’t have to. Consider OfficeMax’s ElfYourself campaign, now in its third year. Last December, 39 million Americans and more than 100 million worldwide visited ElfYourself to make videos of themselves as dancing elves.
Now the jewelry industry is getting in on the trend with Hearts on Fire’s new viral campaign. Consumers can visit the Hearts on Fire site to create a customized interactive virtual snow globe with their own uploaded photo that they can email to friends and family. The snow globes are cute, with floating diamond “snow” giving only the gentlest of holiday hints. (See a screen shot of the globe card I made below, without the shaking and snow but you get the idea…..)
That gets at the tricky part about viral campaigns. To succeed, they have to be fun and largely non-commercial. ElfYourself is silly and enjoyable for a wide audience but does it make people buy more office products at Office Max? That’s harder to measure. Certainly traffic to OfficeMax.com spiked during the promotion. But if you made an elf video last year did you remember it was brought to you by OfficeMax?
Will the Snow Globe campaign boost the Hearts on Fire brand? “Our goal with this promotion is to create a new and exciting way for people to send holiday greetings this year, while providing a fun, casual environment to shop for diamonds,” says Caryl Capeci, Hearts On Fire VP of Marketing. “The customized snow globes, complete with sparkling diamond snow provide the ideal setting to ‘drop a hint’ for that perfect holiday gift.”
Since most jewelry brands don’t have widespread name recognition, successful viral campaigns can definitely boost brand awareness. And since the Hearts on Fire campaign is not at all edgy, it doesn’t risk the company’s luxury image. It may help to make the brand feel more warm and approachable too, which is no doubt a plus for any fine jewelry brand. The snow globe concept is nicely integrated with the product showcase too.
Compare the Hearts on Fire viral effort with the Diamond Disco game from The Diamond Store, an online jewelry retailer in the UK, and you can see how viral can be dangerously cheesy (but fun too) for those seeking to control a brand’s image.
Thankfully, the subservient chicken doesn’t wear diamonds.
The Jewelry Information Center has announced it will launch a “viral” web-based campaign in January that will ask consumers to “Tell Your Jewelry Story.” Rembrandt Charms also does this really well, sponsoring contests to tell your life story through a bracelet of ten charms, which you can win in a monthly contest. RembrandtCharms.com has a long list of these touching stories. It does a great job of conveying how much charms mean to the women who wear them.
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[…] Let it Snow Diamonds What kind of marketing campaign costs very little but reaches thousands, perhaps millions of consumers? Viral marketing campaigns are a marketer’s dream because your audience spreads your message so you don’t have to. Consider OfficeMax’s ElfYourself campaign, now in its third year. Last December … […]
Have you seen Jennifer Dawes jewelry on ObjectFetish.com? Talk about snowing diamonds. This jewelry is to die for. This online gallery is amazing. Take a look, if you haven’t already.