STRATEGY USE CASE
 USE CASE Â
AGENCY: | Willow Marketing |
ROLE: | Senior Strategist, Account Lead |
TEAM: | RCA Team, Jaelen Harell, Eric Gray, Dustin Wood, Sarah Kim |
 PARTNERS: | DITTOE PR, MOSAIC MEDIA |
KEY TECH: | Shopify Pro, Basis, Vectary |
ECOMMERCE EXPERIENCE DEVELOPMENT - EXPERIENCE ENGINEERING FOR DIRECT TO CONSUMER ECOMMERCE: PAID, EARNED AND OWNED MEDIA
SITUATION
Legacy consumer electronics brand RCA identified a market opportunity in gaming monitors. Their goal was to use this opportunity to test a direct-to-consumer ecommerce go-to-market motion. With just a few months before the critical Black Friday / Cyber Monday / Holidays sales period, the team was charged with executing consumer research, audience segmentation, developing a brand extension for the new product, building an ecommerce platform, and creating a go-to-market media plan for the brand.Â
SOLUTION
Research revealed that younger consumers had little to no awareness or established perceptions of the RCA brand. Leveraging the core strengths of paid, owned and earned media, we developed a campaign that lead with influencer marketing and media relations in the weeks leading up to Black Friday, leaning on the source credibility of third parties to establish credibility with consumers. The resulting coverage was then amplified through surgically targeted programmatic advertising in both pre-roll video and banner campaigns. Â
OUTCOME
A brand extension identity was created that helped bridge the heritage of the RCA brand with its new cutting-edge gaming monitors. The team leveraged Shopify Pro’s infrastructure to build and launch a headless e-commerce platform in 90 days. In addition to being available on the site, the product feed was also pushed to other online retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and New Egg, enabling a single point of inventory management across multiple online retailers, and instant product distribution across the internet – all in time for Black Friday! Â
ZERO TO LIVE ECOMMERCE IN 90 DAYS
WORKING FROM ZERO
With a brand-new product and brand, there is no historical information to rely on to establish expectations or budgets. The media team used competitive research tools to understand the category, identify the primary competitors, and track their ad spend down to the product level, including creative examples. This gave the team a good point of reference for budgeting.Â
Additionally, we used regression analysis to model or forecast how traffic was likely to convert on the website. Again, without historic information, we had to research industry benchmarks and averages to work from, but were able to establish forecasted expectations around ROAS and ROI prior to placing media.
No first-party data or purchase history information was available, but we were able to leverage third-party data to reach very specific targets based on their browsing behaviors, purchase intent, social profiles, geography, demographics, and more, minimizing waste and resulting in high-quality qualified traffic to the site.Â
JOURNEY STAGES
HEADLESS ECOMMERCE
Using Shopify Pro as a headless ecommerce solution, RCA was able to instantly push their product feed to popular online retailers like Walmart and Amazon, with the flexibility to leverage additional channels, as well as social commerce, Google Shopping, dynamic ads, and whatever’s next.
3D AUGMENTED REALITY MOBILE EXPERIENCE
Using 3D scanning technology, the team created a navigable virtual model of the new gaming monitor, and used Vectary to create a virtual reality experience where the user could see how the monitor would look in their physical space. Try it out – just scan the code above with your mobile device.Â
INFLUENCER MARKETING - YOUTUBE GAMERS
RCA and the public relations team worked to identify key influencers in the gaming space, developing relationships and sending out monitors for influencers to review. This content was critical to establishing credibility for the RCA Evolution brand in the minds of the target audience, and can be repurposed in any number of ways.
MEDIA RELATIONS - GAMER PRESS
The public relations team pitched the new product to hundreds of industry publishers, generating tons of reviews, positive press and even some awards from venerable publications like Tom’s Hardware and TechPowerUp. This tactic also helped establish credibility, awareness, and preference with consumers.
HOW ARE YOU INTEGRATING THE STRENGTHS OF PAID, OWNED AND EARNED MEDIA?
PROGRAMMATIC AMPLIFICATION
Using programmatic advertising and third-party data, we were able to deliver messaging featuring endorsements from highly credible third-party sources to the specific target audience, based on their behaviors, buying habits, and intent to purchase via banner and pre-roll. Google Shopping and social advertising also helped amplify the message. Â