When marketers setup campaigns it’s important to envision the consumer journey. I’m a lifelong student of consumer behavior when it is impacted by media. I was watching KCAL 9 today and they was a fantastic PR story for a great new product and clothing line inspired by the Cheetos brand of chips. The effect was immediate. Witty banter about the unique fashion line, a snippet of a model wearing Cheetos pajamas, and a view of the premium website took about 25 seconds to share. The final talking point was a casual notice that the fashion line is already sold out.
The PR mention was executed well. Create interest. Limit supply. Generate scarcity, and move on.
This is powerful, and I immediately took action. I searched Google for the site and found an article about the fashion line on Elle. Social proof has been delivered as validation from another media entity, and this case one that’s an authority on high fashion.
Lots of these elements are straight out of the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.
After performing a Google search, I visited the site and then posted to Facebook. If the marketing efforts want to keep top of mind they’ll be serving remarketing ads periodically throughout the holiday season. Even though most of their products are sold out they’ll want me to keep them top of mind. When the product line returns in full stock after the holiday season maybe I’ll get those cheetah lovin’ pajamas I so desire. In the meantime, as a way of fulfilling my own desire for Cheetos products, I’ll get one of their secondary items that I don’t want as much until the product that I have my eye on is in stock. This has the effect of boosting holiday sales, a tried and true strategy executed by companies like Nintendo. In Cialdini’s Influence the story is told of parents who end up buying a place-holder Christmas gift for their kids so that after the holidays when a glut of the highly sought after product is made available in the marketplace, they buy the intended gift.
If I’m the marketer I’m looking at search traffic for terms related to this site, like “cheetos fashion”. I’m then looking at website traffic and tying it back to known media mentions. I’m sure there was a website traffic spike at about 8:35pm in Los Angeles. Finally, if I’m partnering with media entities like Elle maybe Elle lets me remarket to users who are visiting the page covering the Cheetos fashion line. As PR mentions rack up I’d also be using a social listening tool to track sentiment for the store, which I’m sure is through the roof positive. It has great novelty factor right when people are looking for gift giving ideas!
In summary, with the ability to enable precise marketing tracking lets marketers see exactly when and where consumers respond.
Don’t forget to checkout the store! https://shop.cheetosstore.com/#?offset=0&limit=25&includeUnavailable
