To amplify the launch of Rafael Nadal as the brand’s first ever celebrity endorsement, Tommy Hilfiger wanted employees to be advocates for the campaign across their personal social media accounts. We devised a way of overcoming a stringent social media policy and made it easy for employees to use their voices on behalf of the brand on social media.
Tommy Hilfiger, which falls under the same parent company as Calvin Klein and Speedo – PVH – had a robust social media policy which made it clear that if employees were in any doubt about what was safe to post on social media, that saying nothing was better than saying something wrong.
This had led to hesitation among employees to interact with Tommy Hilfigers' content on social media. The Rafael Nadal campaign was using Periscope – a live broadcast channel introduced by Twitter – as part of the launch. Our challenge was to get employees to help amplify the reach of the content going online.
We followed two principles: give people permission to get involved, and make it easy for them to do so.
Step 1 involved explaining why the endorsement was so important for the business, and why the brand was taking a social-first approach to marketing.
Step 2 was giving crystal clear instructions to employees on how they could join in and what the benefit of them joining would be.
Step 3 was giving people access to ready formatted assets – such as LinkedIn and Twitter banners, profile picture overlays and other branded campaign assets that they could share on their personal social media channels.
Employees around the world tuned in to see a live strip tennis match (seriously) broadcast from New York, along with thousands of Twitter users.
Dozens of campaign assets, including shots of Rafa himself ‘doing a Nadal’ (that’s rearranging his underwear to non-tennis fans) were shared across social media, helping to amplify the buzz around the launch.
