More and more online merchants would like to learn from others when it comes to customer acquisition. It has been a joy to see Finnish merchants sharing knowledge and experience.
Alongside this, many of them have travelled abroad to see what competitors or the sector’s biggest actors have come up with. Regardless, many of them struggle on with their own advertising. Could I do something better and whom should I learn from?
Here, I’ve brought together five interesting examples from large American direct-to-consumer online retailers. Their business model is to a large extent based on active, paid customer acquisition. That requires ads to combine efficacy and quality. If lots of dollars are sacrificed to customer acquisition daily, the ads have to be tested.
Nobody will stop you learning from the best in the world. Be bold and stand out from the crowd.
1. Chilly's Bottles
The well-known manufacturer of aluminium bottles Chilly’s Bottles is familiar for its increasingly frequent social media ads. The short videos, which are simple, yet feature the powerfully colourful products, are memorable. The videos contain nothing unique, but the playful ads make people pause for thought and smile. During the summer, the company has presented its new, bold print-themed bottles with dedicated product videos. For example, it played with the futuristic new brown colour using a rocket launch theme. This example shows how individual stills can be used to produce an addictive video, as long as the video is short enough and its effects strong.
(If the video is not visible, watch it here)
2. Everlane
In its ads, Californian apparel retailer Everlane, which stresses ethics and offers minimalist design, invests in the visual. The carousel pictures tell a story and the slide show-style ads seen during the summer are exceptionally short. They are between three and six seconds long.
Interestingly, the videos show a complete outfit, then jump close to a single product or products, and then back to the big picture. This effect is little used in clothing ads, meaning it stands out from the crowd.
(If the video is not visible, watch it here)
3. Glossier
Glossier, known for its makeup, trusts in a simple but effective concept. In its advertising, it relies on makeup videos that are 15–30 seconds long. They present a single star product at a time and it is seen in use straight away.
The newest videos are known for the camera angle moving during the video and for the powerful background music that gives them rhythm. Glossier stands out from its competitors on the advertising front by offering shorter videos with little speech and even less text.
(If the video is not visible, watch it here)
4. Trunk Club
Trunk Club, which offers clothing chosen by a personal stylist, already has legendary status. Its ads show visual skills for presenting outfits. The images are beautiful, and a lot of thought has been put into the order in which the products pop up.
What is most interesting is to pay attention to how the company’s ad copy differs between men’s and women’s boxes. Women are addressed with a longer timeframe in mind. The ad texts appeal to their personal emotions. With men, the ads get straight to the point. Do you need this; will you buy this? You will. OK!
Trunk Club was also one of the first to release short videos where the clothes pop out of nowhere. Finns know these from the golden age of the Ostos TV shopping channel, when a soft older male voice would say, “but wait, there’s more”. A pile of unnecessary and even more unnecessary stuff, offered as a gift, would appear.
(If the video is not visible, watch it here)
5. Bombas
Bombas is an American sock company that is best known for its comfortable, sporty socks. In its videos, the company has used a lot of different slide show videos and been bold in making mobile-optimized vertical videos.
Inventively produced vertical videos are still a good way to stand out from the crowd and when filming, the vertical format allows for a picture or text, for example, to be added to the product image.
A video that speaks to customers can also be supported with some humour or a code for a small discount. Both approaches clearly work.
(If the video is not visible, watch it here)
What ideas and approaches speak to you? Which of them would work in making your store’s customer acquisition more powerful? Get in touch and we’ll think about the next steps together.