Throughout the summer, Kohl's explored some of the country's best destinations with the help of amazing influencers and Pinterest.
Using Pinterest to allow customers to virtually join them for the ride, Kohl's traveled to a new destination each week. Resource/Ammirati and Kohl's partnered with influential bloggers from across the country to create a shared Pinterest Place board to fuel Kohl's #DestinationSummer campaign with imagery that resonates with Pinterest's distinctive audience. The best part: Each of the bloggers created original content that features Kohl's merchandise in their own unique way. Quickly taking advantage of Pinterest's new location Pin feature, they Pinned this content onto the place board map as geo-tagged Pins, allowing the community to follow along on the trip. At each destination, Kohl's Pinned in tandem with each influencer, making the experience uniquely fun and collaborative. Leveraging the geo-tagged Pins combined with influencer activation on Pinterest hasn't been widely utilized by retailers yet, which makes this a truly one-of-a-kind initiative.
Kohl's community and new fans alike are loving the creative, original content that showcases just how Kohl's products can make summer perfect wherever they are, and Pinterest loves this campaign for its collaborative use of a shared place board feature by a forward-thinking retail giant.
Kohl's wanted to run a summer campaign that would change people's perception of the retail giant as not just a destination for shopping, but as an inspiration for summer and all that summer can mean to us.
The brand wanted to use Pinterest to drive that amazing feeling of summer and leverage Place Pins, a relatively new Pinterest feature that allows users to Pin to a map.
We knew that in order to break through the noise and really reach people through Pinterest, we had to have quality content that would elevate the brand beyond stale and basic summertime product Pins. Consumers are looking for content that makes them stop scrolling, that stops everything. They want to be inspired and encouraged that they can also experience and recreate the same feeling that great Pins give them.
We knew that we couldn't just curate existing content to anchor the Pinterest campaign. We needed to create our own—in a completely new way. We wanted to be fresh and modern and showcase products in a new light, making folks want to Pin and feel that summertime inspiration. We were thoughtful in our strategy in finding key influencers who would balance the campaign with engagement and reach, and also truly alter the perception of the Kohl's brand.
We used our in-house blogging experts to curate a list of people who had influence across a broad range of summer themes and social channels. We knew that to succeed we would need these influencers to have reach beyond Pinterest—as bloggers, travel experts, foodies, moms and fashionistas.
The influencers were a mix of ambassadors, citizens and professional bloggers who were able to inspire with quality content, lend credibility and build brand awareness. We were careful to choose responsible and well-respected influencers who shared our ethics and were committed to a truthful voice in this campaign.
We advised Kohl's to invite these influencers to create original content—showcasing Kohl's merchandise in a new way—and Pin alongside of Kohl's as we made the journey across the US.
Our recommendation was that instead of only having influencers Pin existing content, we would source bloggers and influencers to create original content that would allow consumers to see Kohl's in a different way—and for the content to live across all channels, attracting new customers with this original lifestyle content.
Because we chose to tap a wide range of influencers, from nationally recognized style authorities to locally known bloggers, content featuring Kohl's products reached a far more diverse audience than Kohl's branded content typically does.
These influencers' blog posts and accompanying social posts exposed their extended communities to the value and quality that is found at Kohl's, while the shared Pinterest place board enabled #DestinationSummer pins to travel beyond Kohl's core fan base and consequently grow Kohl's Pinterest community.
The execution not only excited the community and evoked the feeling of summer, but it also exposed Kohl's to a new set of fans who may not have realized how much the retailer has to offer.
