Inside #FitFamilyChallenge: Oriflame’s lockdown strategy for consumer engagement

In a bid to motivate people to stay fit while staying home, Oriflame rolled out #FitFamilyChallenge conceptualized by VMLY&R. Social Samosa dwells deeper into the campaign execution and brand objective & communication strategy.

While the whole world is staying indoors to prevent the spread of coronavirus, our newest fad with home workouts and exercises has been the talk of the town. There is an increased level of awareness about the significance of staying fit for physical and mental well being among the masses. Leveraging this insight with #FitFamilyChallenge, the Swedish beauty brand utilized its social media channels to reach out and engage with its audience.

Through the campaign, users were asked to submit videos/pictures of their family exercising and getting fit together. Participants were then asked to nominate their friends to take the challenge, spreading the fitness movement. 

Insight behind #FitFamilyChallenge

Naveen Anand, Senior Director, Regional Marketing, Oriflame South Asia highlights here that that the brand is Swedish and it has a different take on Beauty – Beauty by Sweden. Which means not just looking beautiful but living a more beautiful life in how we live, feel, and act. "For World Health Day, we wanted to engage our users in an activity that captures this spirit of holistic wellness."

Oriflame claims to have been taking significant steps to solidify its commitment towards health and well being of individuals during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Brief

The brief shared with VMLY&R was to engage the brand consultants and end consumers on World Health Day given the current situation of lockdown. Oriflame also wanted to add a strong layer of relatability, relevance, and scale to the campaign.

In times of challenges, the brand saw this as an opportunity to create a nationwide movement powered by the main squad – families.

Creative Brainstorming & Campaign Execution amidst lockdown

When quizzed how did the team go about brainstorming & decision-making while following social distancing, Anand shares that they aligned their teams by making one person the Point of Contact for all approvals without delays. The person bounced off the idea to the brand’s Marketing Director who loved it and got everyone on board quickly.

“This campaign being so close to our core value of Wellness, we sped up our processes of approvals and even encouraged our internal teams to participate themselves in this simple and fun challenge. Our agency on record VMLY&R have been our partners for a while, so they understand our needs and did all they could to give us a speedy and creative turnaround,” adds Anand.

Meanwhile, Amandeep Singh, Business Director, VMLY&R Delhi shares that the agency has learned to be more structured about meetings and ways of working, which has been a positive experience that the teams will take with them even once we are back to working in the same physical space.

“There’s been a steep learning curve, but we are using this time to explore new, innovative solutions for the activities we used to do in person every day. Also, being very clear about our objective for the clients which is “Creating a Connected Brand” is something which acts as a north star for our entire team,” Singh notes.

The
Campaign Journey

VMLY&R uses a lot of tools line Teams, One Drive, and Collaboration tools. These tools make working remotely almost as good as real life. The brief was taken from the client and given to the Connections Strategy team. The agency also uses new platforms like Mural, a virtual whiteboard, for brainstorming.

In current times, World Health Day happens to occur in an unprecedented and world’s biggest ever lockdown in India. Anand elucidates, “Our social listening and analytics gave us a quick report of trends and conversations happening on the online channels. The first one was of course that people are spending the whole day at home with their families, and second that people are actually looking forward to making these moments interesting and more meaningful”.

Also Read: Inside: BBLUNT #GrowOutChallenge – Homemade Advertising the future?

This was then followed by bringing in together the main aspects of human insight, creative idea, media, and PR which is essentially what the connections team does.

The connections brief framework was then shared with the creative teams which came back with the whole concept. The social media and connections team then further designed the campaign with legs and surround plans. The paid media and PR are seamlessly integrated into legs and implications. That’s how the brand-agency duo launched the #FitFamilyChallenge.

Social Media Plug-In

Oriflame is leveraging social media as a tool to continue communicating with its audience and keeping them updated about the brand. Moreover, it is also using social media platforms to engage with our audiences using campaigns such as the #FitFamilyChallenge or the most recently launched #BeautyofMoms and also weekend giveaway contests.

For the #FitFamilyChallenge, the social team kept a tab on all the UGC being created and shared with the brand which in turn is used in the campaign. Oriflame states that the challenge received many entries, with participants doing squats, suryanamaskar, and other physical activities that can be carried out within the safety of their homes.

Anand explains, “Such campaigns offer increased visibility for the brand, boosting recognition and recall. For instance, the aforementioned challenge alone garnered many entries with unprecedented participation from across the country. They not only increase customer engagement but also solidify the brand’s overarching goal and vision which, in our case, is to encourage holistic beauty that stems from looking and feeling beautiful”.

A working client-agency relationship

The most important factor is the strength and depth of the relationship between a client and an agency. “Fortunately, our relationship with the Oriflame team is built on both trust and respect. There might be a long physical distance but there is no distance between minds and hearts even today. We make it a point to follow the same schedule that we used to when coming in to work,” Singh.

He continues, “Plus, we’re all the more committed to easing these uncertain times for both our clients and their end-users at large. What better way to do that than with ideas that bring a smile to their faces!”

Re-looking the Marketing Strategy

Anand shares that safety and health tips were added to the brand communication, but broadly it didn’t have to change much. “The biggest shift which we have if of course the stay at home scenario. We also did a very deep analysis of the scenarios of the current lockdown situation, the recovery phase, and what is being called the NEW NORMAL”.

Anand agrees that although things will definitely start coming back to normal there would be some fundamental shifts in consumer behavior.