Wet Seal, a popular teen retailer with 500 brick and mortar stores nationwide and a sizable e-commerce footprint to match, partnered with ICED Media to launch a branded Snapchat account as part of their overall effort to connect with its core audience of fashion forward and mobile savvy teen girls in their native digital landscape. Sharing snaps of exclusive behind the scenes footage, in-store images, branded laydowns, and disappearing coupon codes proved viable tactics in driving organic growth. These evergreen posts were supplemented by a key seasonal activation, a first-of-its kind influencer takeover with popular teen blogger, MsMeghanMakeup, who touts a combined social audience of over 300,000 followers. The holiday season provided the ideal framework to showcase the festive world of a real teen, allowing Meghan to bring her authentic energy to the brand's channel while simultaneously embracing the spirit of Wet Seal. As the mobile divide widens between the social platforms adopted by teens and those of their parents', agile marketers looking to reach the elusive teen demographic can benefit from a mobile-first approach to content marketing and digital ROI. Through cross-platform promotion and word of mouth, coupled with the influencer partnership, Wet Seal had grown its Snapchat audience to over 9,000 connections in just two weeks, and Ms Meghan’s takeover was the most viewed brand “story" in the platform’s history—with more than 6,000 views in 24 hours. In the two months since Wet Seal has colonized the channel, the account has earned over 250,000 “story" views, proving that Snapchat is a viable platform for brands and marketers and that Wet Seal is the best-in-class brand on the channel. The combination of a new platform, real-time creative development, and the influential partner take-over made the Wet Seal Snapchat launch highly newsworthy, and garnered industry accolades in outlets, including Ad Age and Mobile Marketer.
