Dr. Martens X ? PR Campaign Plan
w14019649 Lee Joseph Peacock
00
Contents Page
01
Situation Analysis
05
Launch Calendar
02
Social Media
06
Film Blurb
03
Target Audience
04
Campaign Details
01
Situation Analysis
History - 1947 - Dr Martens as a brand were founded following the 1945 invention of the air-cushioned sole. - 1960 - The now classic eight-eyelet boot was first seen on April 1st 1960, beginning a history of rebellious self-expression. - 1970 - Dr Martens were linked heavily into British youth culture. Multiple subcultures adopted the boot and made it their own. - 1980 - A rise in social resentment lead local youth culture to adopt a more visual aesthetic, often resulting in home customised Dr Martens. - 2010 - Dr Martens celebrated five generations and five decades worth of subcultural style and political stand points. Dr Martens as a brand stands for both a sturdy, well made product and maintaining an emotional connection built up by decades of subcultures. Dr Martens expects at least eighteen months of reasonable wear from its products. The leather is of a high quality and is treated with a variety of animal fats and leather conditioners*. The soles are first heat-sealed to the uppers and then stitched for extra security (Goodyear welting). This provides the shoe with the stability and longevity the Griggs family is known for. *Vegan range is moisturized with coconut oils and other plant based treatments. Dr. Martens sees itself as a token of self-empowerment, a tool for those who have pride. The silhouette of the boots allows the wearer to adopt the boots and tailor them to there own personal style making the product reasonably inclusive. Large portions of the customers within the brand are those who have been wearing the boots since the beginning. Although products are now outsourced, Dr. Martens do still carry a Made In England range, this range uses the same 83 shoe welt meaning size and fit is as true as possible to the original boots put into circulation in the 60s. The four key pillars of the brand are creativity, music, fashion and self-expression. They are heavily featured throughout collaborations (such as Mark Wiggan, Raf Simons and William Hogarth) as well as with staff appreciation within the online blog, posts such as illustrator of the month, street style and runway reoccurring frequently. Although often working with high-end designers within runway styling or collaborations the brand itself is positioned within the higher end of the high street. Shoes are also stocked in retailers such as Office, shuh and Topshop. Dr Martens has a wide variety of shoe ranges for example; • Vegan • Made in England • Industrial • Rugged • Comfort • For Life • Core as well as the seasonal collections. Consumers are kept up to date with these lines as well as brand collaborations and updates via the blog. The amount of traffic the blog receives fluctuates regularly, the post announcing the AW15 theme received 286 shares amongst social media where as the adventure time boots gained over 3.5K in internet shares alone. Other current marketing activities consist of in-store intimate gigs, events such as “the Barbour Shop” and auctions raising money for charity whilst promoting new artist collaborations.
Strengths - Staff appreciation - Anual collaborations - Strong brand image and heritage story - In-store events e.g. barber shop, intimate gigs - Large ranges of shoes such as Vegan, For Life, Made in England, Rugged, Comfort etc.
Weaknesses - Not known for the wide selection the brand carries - Low traction on the sites blog - Large ranges not taken full advantage of (Only two vegan options in current collections and a small selection of Made in England shoes in store)
Oppertunities - Further promotion of the blog and website through mediums such as an apps - Staff commission - Promoting individual lines further - Customer appreciation
Threats - Other retailers Selling Dr Martens at a variety of competitive prices e.g. Scorpio, schuh, Office, Topshop - More inexpensive alternatives - Shoes still being heavily linked to a select group of subcultures and feeling restricted to those subcultures - Now outsourcing most shoes through various parts of Asia some customers think they are loosing touch with the British heritage side of the brand
02
Social Media Dr. Martens heavily relies on social media having official accounts on 8 platforms with the opportunity to expand this further with the likes of Snapchat. Social media is used primarily to promote latest campaigns, hold competitions, events, showcase products (both classic and seasonal) and share customers styled imagery.
Platform Facebook
Fans
Posts
Content
Interaction
Opportunity
1.5million
1-3 Daily
Conversation starter captions. Likes can range from 50 1K. Inconsistent. More comments on posts than likes, people conversing amongst each other.
Regional based posts. Stores could independently run there own pages to allow local customers further information on what is happening around them e.g. Newcastle barber shop events.
150K
1-5 Daily
Posts are being liked and retweeted. Most posts stay under 200 likes. Platform is used heavily to direct complaints to customer services.
1million
2-3 Daily
Mix of image and video based content. Very visual posts. No just text posts. A range of campaign material, products both classic and seasonal. Street style from both general consumers and staff. In store events. Product imagery, street style. Almost all posts are image and caption based. Global in store events and gigs being promoted. Large amount of images and GIFs, not many videos. All images and GIFs. Docs of the day tends to be one of the most popular posts. Images of classic and seasonal stock. Street style and staff style. Global in store events.
Focus on quality over quantity of posts. Some posts further thought out are more successful e.g. April 1st Birthday posts. Have a secondary twitter account for complaints and customer service. Have more conversation starting posts to up comments. Focus on specific regions.
Youtube
19.4K
Tumblr
N/A
Approx 3 monthly with a high increase at new season launch times. Posts aren’t dated
Vine
8.8K
Very few. Last post was September 2015.
Google+
11.5K
Snapchat
None Existent
Infrequent. No posts for 25+ weeks at time of research. N/A
19.3K
Infrequent, large amounts of posts at once.
Campaign videos, collaboration videos. Short fashion films, videos showcasing musical artists.
Most interacted platform. Posts always reaching over 10K likes. Comments used but not as heavily as likes. Not much conversation. The official page is tagged hundreds of times a day because of the Docs of the day posts. This allows people to view more Dr Marten products with no cost to the brand. Videos vary from having 300+ views to 5K+ views. Few likes. Comments almost none existent.
Images, videos, blog posts and GIFs. Also a range of inspirational images. Links to all other social media (not including Vine and Pinterest) as well as the store. Street style and reposts from other social media platforms. Few videos showing music, campaigns and general Dr Marten wearers. (Only 14 posts at time of research). Campaigns, competitions and store updates.
Some posts are heavily reblogged and likes others aren’t as much. Youtube videos may also be receiving a percentage of there views from this platform.
Have a regular posting schedule to allow for posts to be expected. Keep posting consistent. Get customers involved in the same way Docs of the day does. Allow for more original content, content exclusive to tumblr to give people a reason to follow multiple social media platforms. An increase in the inspirational images, this would give another dimension to the tumblr blog.
57K views combined. High number for amount of posts.
Cut down some youtube videos as teaser vines. Used vine as a platform to target a younger customer.
Very little to none on each post.
Keep posting frequent. Possible recycle of other platform posts to ensure a consistent profile.
N/A
N/A
Current and past campaigns and collaborations. High fashion runway. Street style. Yearly highlights (events and gigs).
Only following a small number of people (25). Only liked 8 posts. Images are repinned, the number varies widely.
Snapchat is another form of social media for quick updates and promotion. Allow for brand takeovers. Snapchat high fashion runways (similar to NYC Fashionweek) Be more interactive with fans. Allow for more regular posting rather than being sporadic.
03
Target Audience
The Creative Those who choose various creative outlets not limited to fine art, a mix of performance art, street art, styling and more. Those who express themselves through the way they dress and have a no-care attitude. The creative would be the member of the friend group who is always experimenting with their appearance, or customising clothing after being inspired by high fashion, shows or gallery visits. To be the creative is to remove the boundaries. Customers and staff alike who want to put themselves out there on a creative platform, or who just like to get involved with brands they enjoy. NO AGE RESTRICTIONS. Creativity is valid at any age, whether it is those who have been wearing Dr. Martens since the 60s or those who have just came to love the brand in recent years. Bloggers, local artists or general creative tinkerers; the ideal contributor would be someone who inspires and shares there creative energy.
04
Campaign Details
Dr. Martens as a brand are known primarily for rebellion, music and an array of subcultural references. These are only some of the key pillars Dr. Martens should be known to stand for. Another being creativity. Creativity has started to be addressed mainly within monthly blog segments entitled “illustrator of the month” Targeting creativity in an artistic form links heavily to collaborations associated with the brand, whilst also allowing for staff appreciation to happen as a byproduct. The amount of page shares the blog receives post-to-post varies quite considerably from 500 shares to 20K shares, meaning that not all areas of the brands target market are seeing or sharing each post. Creativity is also addressed through their Instagram feed in the form of “Docs of the Day”, although this gets more attention than the blog the platform of Instagram is limited in its sharing ability. This form of social media is designed to be short, snappy and to the point and not to delve deeper into the brands values.
Objectives
- Throughout this campaign the aim is to achieve a much wider range with the creativity Dr. Martens stand for, this being a mix of the campaigns “Dr. Martens X” and “What do you stand for?” - The main idea behind the strategy is to give those who are involved in various forms of arts a chance to showcase there talents to a wider audience than they would be accessible too within there own smaller circles, by including them in a fast paced fashion film compilation demonstrating there various skills. The campaigns is known as “Dr. Martens X ?” the question mark would then be replaced by the talent in question for the individual videos whilst maintaining an ambiguous name for promotional purposes. - The scope for this campaign would allow the brand to expand or contract the idea to how they deem necessary. Allowing the talent to be tailored to either specific cities or regions. As a brand Dr. Martens think a lot about the heritage of the cities they place there stores, having local talent perform or create artistic murals within interiors. This campaign would widen the community feel to those who may not have a talent that lends itself well to an in store performance.
Strategy
Using the preexisting methods of advertising brand competitions through mediums such as shop flyers, store newsletter and website adverts, the chance to star in a Dr. Marten seasonal talent video would be promoted. This would then be spoken about further on social media platforms and with on-brand sponsors such as bloggers or up-and-coming musical artists. Getting a good range of spokes people allows the audience to grow to a range of fan basis whilst still achieving an aspirational feel. If somebody you admire such as a blogger endorses a competition or a product it instantly becomes more desirable. Once the talent is selected casual online interviews would then take place. This allows for extra content on the blog whilst giving the general public a further understanding of the talent and the person behind it. These could be points that are missed within short 90-second videos. The success of this campaign would be based on the following; - Blog and website traffic - Number of applicants per cycle - Social media interaction - Number of views and subscribers on lesser-used social media e.g. Youtube. - Sales of the stock being used in the video/photographic campaigns.
Messages
Playing on the existing brand morals and campaigns such as “What do you stand for?� the aim is to achieve a campaign in which is very inclusive, Dr. Martens stands for the weird and wonderful, a campaign of this style would be an effective way of showing this and allowing mass amounts of the community to get involved over the seasons.
Tactics
Through advertising in store, online and across all forms of social media customers would be encouraged to send their audition videos/portfolios to an email address provided. With this campaign being specific to various cities the competition would also be shown in regional based publications such as NE1 (Newcastle) I-ON Glasgow (Glasgow). The campaign is to be advertised for up to 3-4 months after the previous campaign has launched. Once talent has been selected interviews and campaign style photo shoots will take place. These interviews will follow the same structure as the current staff appreciation blog posts. Questions such as “What do you stand for?” and “Where do you get your inspiration from?” will be key to showing further dimension to the chosen few. These interviews will then be posted to the store blog in week intervals leading up the campaign launch. This allows for further promotion of both the talent and the brand, giving fresh content to social media. Within the final week before launch social media platforms Youtube and Instagram will become key. Allowing for teaser video mash ups and campaign images to become the point of focus. This would also allow for early advertisement for the next cycle, giving talent time to get videos and portfolios perfected for audition.
Tools - Regional based magazines. - Instagram. - Youtube. - Twitter.
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Brands online blog. Instore Flyers Video reels instore
A M DR
? X S N E T R
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE IN THE NEXT SEASON OF DR MARTENS X ?
DO YOU HAVE A CREATIVE TALENT? DO YOU WANT TO BROADCAST TO THE WORLD ? ARE YOU AN ILLUSTRATOR? A PERFORMER? OR IS YOUR TALENT MORE OBSCURE? THERE ARE NO LIMITS HERE. THEN THIS IS YOUR CHANCE, EMAIL US YOUR AUDITION TAPE OR AN EXAMPLE OF YOUR PORTFOLIO AT; DRMARTENSXYOU@DMRETAIL.CO.U K
Flyer Mock-Up
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Launch Calendar
JAN - FEB - MAR - APR - MAY - JUN - JUL - AUG - SEP - OCT - NOV - DEC X X X X X X X X X X X X 1 - January/July - New cycle of campaign to be advertised across all social media platforms. Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter primarily (as well as the Dr. Martens blog). Applicants can start to apply for the next season through contact details provided. 2 - February/August - Videos are launched for current campaign e.g. February 2017 - S/S 2017 Cycle. Videos will be launched across all social media. Primarily Youtube and Facebook to accommodate the 90 second length of the videos. Videos will also be added onto the appropriate in-store reels. Campaigns will be heavily advertised in store to gain more offline applicants for coming season. 3 - March/September - Success of current campaign videos are monitored. Youtube views, social media shares and blog traffic will all be taken into consideration. Dr. Martens teams will start to view applicants and make early decisions. 4 - April/October - Dr. Martens will make there final decision on talent being put forward for the Dr. Martens X ? campaign. Teaser interviews and campaign style photoshoots will be conducted. 5 - May/November - Videos will be shot and edited. Success of previous campaigns will be monitored in order to set new targets for the upcoming cycles reach. Interviews and photoshoots will be launched once weekly to start to build traffic and conversation through various social media and the brands online blog. 6 - June/December - Final preparations to be made. Final video editing. Teaser video to be launched. Next cycle to be advertised to allow for talent to make submission videos.
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Film Blurb
Dr. Martens X ? “Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty.� Dr. Martens stands for creativity, self-expression and freedom. Through collaborating with Dr. Martens a selection of young creatives have been given the chance to demonstrate their own creative talents. From illustration to performance art these creatives have given it there all to be this seasons selection. Who will follow in there footsteps? Could it be you? If you think you have what it takes email us at drmartensxyou@dmretail.com