Social Media Campaign Review: Naturals Salon Gives the Planet a Makeover With My New Santa Campaign

Introduction

Naturals, is India's largest hair and beauty salon which has recently launched its first social media campaign. They executed a Christmas Campaign, much before anyone else thought of running one. In this article we'll see how successful the beauty salon has been in its maiden social media campaign.

Objective

In its first social media campaign, the hair and beauty salon has tried to catch the fancy of socially aware Indian netizens by extending its brand promise of a makeover for planet Earth.

Execution

Extending its brand promise, Naturals has chosen a Purple Colour instead of the common Reds and Greens which depicts the miracle makeover the brand is capable of. Taking the idea of makeover a little further, as part of the My New Santa campaign, the brand has taken upon itself to plant 100,000 saplings to give a makeover to the "ailing" earth.

The 4-day long campaign started on December 20th and ran till December 23rd with each day planned for different activities. Day one began with a small teaser about Santa's makeover, and on the second day it ran a twitter campaign with a hashtag #mynewsanta. It created some fun quizzes which contributed to trending of the hashtag (see the image below)

Q7) Tell us the total number of saplings that are being planted? Watch the video: http://t.co/vbfSOhIInv #SantaGoesNatural #NaturalsSalon

— Naturals (@Naturals_India) December 23, 2013

The day three contest moved to Facebook where it created some Ask Santa videos. On the day fourth day the contest culminated showing Santa planting a tree as his gift to the world.

Positives

The campaign has shown the power of how social media can be used to connect with the users and collaborate a good deed together. Environmental campaigns on Facebook and Twitter can drive interesting conversations owing to its social impact.

The idea was very powerful. And the duration of campaign was quite good along with perfect timings.

Scope for Improvement

One thing I noticed missing on Twitter timeline and the brand's Facebook page is the posts and updates after December 23. This is not a good sign. The brand needs to make a constant effort to be alive on social media. Running a campaign and then going back to what it was doing earlier and then coming again with new campaign is not the way to go.

I think the campaign should have been promoted more to get increased share of eyeballs. And instead of using suspense as a motivator, the brand should have gone the entertainment route. And I'm also not sure how effective the episodic story-telling is for a brand like Naturals Salon and its campaign. A slightly different treatment might have won more hearts.

Conclusion

The idea behind Naturals Salon was noble. The campaign has naturally included a care for the planet in its brand promise. The combination of corporate social responsibility with profit motive of a brand has been aptly included in the campaign. The campaign cannot be said to be a failure, but it was also a couple of notch short of success.