Challenge
ASOS is established as a cult e-commerce destination among young women, the challenge for Carat Global Management was to drive the same kind of excitement and command the same kind of loyalty from young men in the UK, the US, and Europe.
The Autumn/Winter collection was make-or-break time for ASOS’ menswear offering. Carat Global Management was given very specific targets. Awareness, acquisition and consideration all had to increase. Awareness had to rise from 13% to 20%, 25% of visitors to ASOS had to be new, and 5% of visitors had to purchase.
An in-house research tool showed that the target audience would not respond to ordinary fashion media advertising. It pointed to a new kind of role model, the urban icon, and this insight was cemented with panel-work which also revealed online video was the medium that would get the audience excited. In order to reach this audience the campaign had to feature new urban music, sport and dance heroes in a digital, shareable package.
Insight
Carat Globalknew it wouldn’t be enough to simply showcase ASOS’ clothes. To resonate with the audience they needed to position ASOS as a lifestyle choice made by those with fashion, urban and street credentials, rather than a simple shopping destination. Through partnerships with Universal Music and a network of urban content producers, Carat Global put together a global deal offering users access to the world’s hottest young talent. Each city’s landing page was supported with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with the performers, and a ‘shop the look’ section allowing users to buy the clothing. The ASOS Urban Tour content created was housed in a dedicated part of the main ASOS website, and supporting content was uploaded alongside to create a branded online hub.
Solution
The solution was the ASOS Urban Tour, featuring the world’s first ‘shoppable video’ that took users on an interactive tour of the coolest cities around the globe and featured the best young talent in the world.
Using the urban heroes, all stars in the worlds of music, sport and fashion, Carat Global commissioned Vice Network to create 40 pieces of content set in major cities such as New York, Paris, London, Tokyo and Berlin. The Urban Tour consumer journey began with the user literally ‘flown’ into their chosen city, landing within a street-scape alongside the performers who were all kitted out in ASOS clothes. Each performer showcased the ASOS clothing, their graceful movements highlighting the quality and cut of the clothes and showing them off to their best advantage. Clickable ‘hotspots’ were placed within the video. Through these interactive portals users could slow the performances down and hone in on each individual performer. They could then learn more about the talent and click to buy their clothing directly from ASOS. Initially the content was distributed organically, through the talent and Vice’s social networks. To encourage views and sharing, specific pieces of content were micro targeted against YouTube and Facebook users’ demographics, interests and behaviours. This placed the videos directly in front of the exact audience ASOS wanted to reach.
Results
-The campaign beat its objectives, delivering: Awareness: 24% Acquisition: 46% of visitors were new Conversion: 14% of visitors purchased (within 7 minutes!)
-Urban Tour became the third most-watched brand video on YouTube in the UK, and the overall content generated 7.3m YouTube views in the first 8 weeks and 7m Twitter impressions.
- 40,000 new male shoppers to the site and generated incremental revenue of $3.2m.