10 Yetis Insight - IdrisElbaXSuperdry: The Launch

TLDR; 10 Yetis supports Superdry in planning and executing a groundbreaking cross-channel campaign to launch its highly anticipated IdrisElbaXSuperdry collaboration that has been recognised by the industry for including never-seen-before tactics that drove great results.

If you follow any of us on Twitter, you’ve probably found it difficult to avoid the fact that we work with epic British fashion brand Superdry - particularly over the past week or so! Why have we been giving them so much social love? Well, glad you asked; the brand’s biggest collaboration to date, you know that one with a certain Idris Elba that we’ve spoken about before, yeah that happened!

Last summer, we helped Superdry plan the social activity around its exclusive invite-only event held for the industry and media in order to reveal its highly anticipated collaboration with the Luther star. The event was a massive success, with loads of buzz floating around the social-sphere from fans, press and bloggers alike.

However, the official launch took Superdry to a whole new level of awesomeness and big deal publications were talking about it before the launch event even took place! We helped Superdry to release the news of its groundbreaking campaign to the marketing trade press ahead of the main event and received coverage from the likes of Marketing Magazine, Brand Republic and The Drum.

The month-long campaign kicked off with teasers being released across Superdry’s primary social channels – Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – varying from sneak peaks of the range and quote images from Idris, to Flipagrams of hero products and SoundCloud mixes created by the man himself.

As we neared the event day, behind the scenes footage was released exclusively with GQ Online and 15-second countdown videos were shared across primary social channels. This, alongside several competitions to win tickets to the event, product before it hit the shelves and 1-2-1 styling sessions with Idris, created mass intrigue and hype. Teaming up with the main man and media partner Shortlist Magazine to also host giveaways helped to create buzz and excitement before the product even hit the stores, while ensuring all fans had the chance to join in the fun.

Working with Rankin, photographer to the stars, Superdry was able to capture some seriously cinematic, premium shots of Idris in the range, that we were able to use for all communications. Some of the images also made their way into the campaign video that was released days before the event. Check it out, it’s pretty cool and has already had more than 180k views - the majority of which has been driven through social media activity.

Months of cross-department (SEO, ecomm, PR, marketing & social) planning and preparation culminated in what is being recognised as a fashion industry first in terms of social activity. In the 24-hour build up to the event, Superdry boldly suspended all of its social media channels with the following message, leaving subtle hints behind to start the conversation:

Soon, fans starting talking, taking to social channels to try and make sense of what was happening. Yes, with our help, Superdry created a WTF? moment and it was so sexual!

But that’s not all. Although social activity resumed the next day on some channels, it did so with a complete overhaul of Superdry’s Instagram channel. Idris Elba totally took over; we turned the brand’s photo-sharing platform into a hub for all things IdrisElbaXSuperdry featuring images, videos, product, and much more.

Each tile when clicked on would take fans on a journey, revealing the collaboration between Superdry and Idris. Each image was tagged and took fans to the corresponding content depending on which tile was clicked. And to make it super useful, there was a way to get back to Superdry’s home Instagram channel too.

The collaborative collection was unveiled at the brand’s flagship Regent Street store on Thursday 26^th November during an all-day event open to the public, as well as an evening event for VIPs.

For fans, the party started when the doors opened at 12pm where Idris Elba himself teased the crowd with a surprise appearance outside the store’s front doors. Excitement was built from hour to hour, where we released a range of treats to reward fans and encourage them to come and join the party. From personalised Snapchat snapbacks signed by Idris himself and opportunities to get a selfie with the main man, to signed receipts and exclusive goody bags – there was so much going on there was no time to breathe. Idris even shared a couple of video teasers on his Instagram (link) channel and had some fun with us while Periscoping!

After a quick break and dress change, the evening event soon kicked-off – and in true Superdry style! A queue formed as far as the eye could see on Regent Street. Passers-by stopped in their tracks, flooding the main road, asking what was going on. But my favourite thing of all; Regent Street totally got SHUT DOWN! Yep! There were so many people there to see what the spotlights, pavement-side DJ and mega-queue was about that people were tweeting asking if London’s main shopping street had been shut down by Superdry! What an achievement!

Idris arrived in the coolest way – an entourage of slick black Range Rovers slowly pulled up to the store. Gorgeous male models exited from the 4x4s like soldiers, waiting eagerly for their General to march on. Idris kept his fans waiting a little, but that seemed to spur them on even more! Press papped away as he exited the car to make his grand appearance; fans screamed while we frantically tried to capture the whole moment live on Periscope and Snapchat for those who weren’t able to make it (does anyone else suffer from FOMO?).

It’s safe to say that all of this didn’t come without substantial investment, and I don’t just mean budget! So much blood, sweat and tears went into this from each arm of the company and its partners. It’s no wonder that the campaign was such a success – the results to speak for themselves, however the sheer amount of time and effort that went into planning let alone executing this huge campaign is admirable in itself.

Over the course of the campaign*, engagement reached an all time high with more than a total of 164k interactions and over 2.8 million reach across social channels. Social activity played an influential part in promoting and driving traffic to the campaign video, with more than 41k click throughs to YouTube to view the film.

To have been part of such a high profile, successful campaign is an extraordinary feeling and definitely a highlight of my career so far (apart from becoming a fully-fledged Yeti of course!). If you missed any of the action, you can check out this event video released by Superdry yesterday.

TLDR; 10 Yetis supports Superdry in planning and executing a groundbreaking cross-channel campaign to launch its highly anticipated IdrisElbaXSuperdry collaboration that has been recognised by the industry for including never-seen-before tactics that drove great results.

*stats collated last Friday for an internal report so were correct at that time.