While some gifts keep on giving, others, as certain brands have learned, can keep on taking.
Extravagant influencer trips, like Tarte’s ventures to Bora Bora and Dubai, and large-scale influencer offerings, like Poppi’s decision to loan vending machines to creators ahead of the Super Bowl, have prompted consumer backlash, causing some brand marketers to reevaluate whether big-name creators are the best recipients for lavish gifts or trips.
As a result, some brands, including beauty brand Cocokind and beverage brand Vita Coco, have turned their attention to customers with community-oriented getaways and giveaways.
Last year, hydration packets brand Waterboy and makeup brand Refy took customers on trips to Mexico and Spain, respectively, and in January, Cocokind took seven customers on a trip to Napa Valley.
“We found ourselves having these conversations around our [influencer] mailers and other costs and expenses…while simultaneously seeing all these conversations happening around influencer trips,” Maria Maciejowski, Cocokind’s CMO, told us. “We decided to redirect the budget and create this unforgettable experience for people who’ve supported us the most over the years.”
Based on the success of the initial trip, Cocokind is planning to bring a different group of customers on a trip in June, Maciejowski said. “At the end of the day, those are the people who are showing up for you every single day,” she said. “They deserve equal, if not more, recognition than people who have a platform.”
Tripping out
For its first and second trips (the latter of which was initially set to be held in Hawaii), Cocokind encouraged customers who regularly purchase, review, or share products to apply, regardless of their follower count. “It really wasn’t about their social presence,” Maciejowski said. “It was about seeing their authenticity and enthusiasm for the brand.”
Those who were selected received a call from Cocokind’s founder and CEO, Priscilla Tsai, who picked them up from the airport and provided gifts like hand-packed lunches and necklaces once in Napa. “She was just so eager to spend as much time with them as possible,” Maciejowski said. “It really is about the connection and the one-to-one.”
Attendees received released and unreleased Cocokind products and spent time with the brand’s VP of product development, who gathered feedback and insights on product features like texture and fragrance, Maciejowski said. The trip was tied to the release of the brand’s Electrolyte Water Cream moisturizer and allowed the brand to not only treat some of its most loyal customers, but also hear their insights, Maciejowski said.
Cocokind used social media to promote the trip, posting content like room reactions and notes from a product concept brainstorm, which Maciejowski said was a way to show other customers that the brand values their input. Cocokind’s social team also made a point to distance itself from flashier marketing tactics, noting in posts that no yachts, caviar, or private jets were involved.
“We really wanted everyone who wasn’t on the trip to still feel like they could appreciate those who truly deserved to win and got that opportunity,” Maciejowski said. “The content was really not about being flashy or ostentatious…It was about, ‘Look at what we do to show how much we appreciate you.’”
Even though big follower counts weren’t required, attendees posted their own content from the trip, which also helped generate buzz, Maciejowski said. “We’re strengthening our relationships with some of our most engaged community [members], and that really causes that ripple effect in organic content creation for the brand,” she said.
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After the Napa trip, Tsai said in an Instagram post that the trip was a “materially impactful marketing strategy” According to Maciejowski, the brand saw a 115% increase in engagement across social channels, a 136% increase in earned media value around Cocokind’s brand values, and an “overwhelmingly positive response and sentiment.”
You get a gift...You get a gift!
Other brands are looking to give back to customers on a smaller scale, like influencer Mikayla Nogueira’s beauty brand Point of View, which recently added 10 customers to its PR mailer list for the next year, or beverage company Vita Coco, which gifted its products in New York’s Washington Square Park for Valentine’s Day.
Vita Coco has handed out samples before, but the February activation, in which the brand handed out samples of its new Strawberries and Creme beverage from a metal cart on casters with a sign reading “vending machine” on top, was inspired directly by online discussions around Poppi’s Super Bowl vending-machine stunt, CMO Jane Prior told Marketing Brew.
“It was really hearing consumers say that they wanted brands to hear them and that they’re sick of influencers getting all the attention and benefiting from all of this gifting from brands,” Prior said. “That’s the sentiment that we were responding to.”
More broadly, Vita Coco’s team had clocked social conversations “where consumers were asking brands to engage more with everyday consumers,” she said.
One TikTok video from the Vita Coco giveaway has been viewed almost 5 million times, while a behind-the-scenes video is up to nearly 1 million views. Prior said the stunt helped drive buzz and awareness, calling it one of the “more engaging initiatives” from the brand.
Another beverage brand, Olipop, had plans to host a mocktail drive-thru to share gift boxes with customers for the first time as an alternative to influencer gifting in January, Steven Vigilante, director of strategic partnerships at Olipop, told us. (The event was indefinitely postponed due to the LA wildfires.) “The people who really appreciate these things are consumers more than influencers in most cases,” Vigilante said before the planned event.
Prior agreed with the sentiment. “It’s really about sharing the love beyond influencers and celebrities, who tend to be the benefactor of many of these gifting campaigns.”
Vita Coco plans to continue gifting influencers, and Prior advised that brands approach with caution and not be “overtly over-the-top” about it. The hardest part of quitting influencer gifting entirely, she said, is that there are few replacements for the reach that can be gained through owned and organic content.
“It’s a challenge for brands to find interesting and creative ways to be able to leverage these influencers and their audiences, but also to be able to do it in a way that doesn’t turn off the consumer, ultimately,” she said.
Vita Coco has one plan for keeping influencers in the gifting conversation. Prior said some creators will receive empty, prepaid shipping boxes next month for them to fill with unused gifted products, which will then be donated to charity.