CLIFFCHAINS combines our passion for fashion and environmental protection. But the road from idea to realization is certainly long and rocky.
“Tinker made them shine, Mike made them fly, you made them iconic”
The Nike slogan on the Air Jordan shoebox
How important is this for the new generation and what do the older ones think about it? Do individual products or brands work if there is no mystical story or goal behind them? Can a communication agency succeed in developing and selling a fashion accessory?
The Contented team has been building successful campaigns for years, creating creatives and advising others on how to advertise, generate sales, what the main message should be, and through which channels we can reach our chosen target audience. But how can we truly be authentic if we do not experience what it feels like to decide the fate of our own product, our own “child”? Brands that have long been market players find it difficult to rewire their communication because they do not understand the people who have already established a connection with the old one. How can we still tell new stories?
For example, you can start a new story with your own brand
There is a long road from the idea to realization, and often one wonders to themselves, damn, this is not as simple as I thought. But when the initial sketches eventually become reality, it compensates for everything.
A CLIFFCHAINS unites our passion for fashion and environmental protection. The pendants are not only uniquely designed and handmade, but we also contribute to planting a tree from the selling price of each product, and the packaging itself is plantable, from which flowers grow. This was the basic concept we started from. Let there be a product that we ourselves love, wear, and can identify with, and let a story, an identity be associated with it. We defined our brand personality in the journey, in environmental protection, and in the love of nature. In our first campaign video, we also tried to capture this feeling in images and atmosphere.
The product is important, but even more important is what the brand communicates about itself.
A short story that people can relate to. We looked around the international market and observed how the big players do it. The most interesting collaboration from the fashion world was the PARLEY-Adidas partnership. Parley is an organization dedicated to saving the oceans. They created an Adidas shoe called Ultra Boost, made entirely from waste extracted from the sea. We translated this into our own concept by supporting an organization that plants a tree for every sale, and our product packaging is made from plantable seed paper. The younger generation likes this, but what do the older ones think? Here are the sales statistics grouped by age for the past three months.
At first glance, the answer is clear, as the young lead, but when our eyes fall on the 65+ age group, it's worth pausing for a moment to think. Has the message reached them too? Are they open to fashion and willing to represent a message like environmental protection? We haven't been operating long enough for the statistics to provide a clear answer, but I don't think this can be attributed to coincidence.
It doesn't work without influencers...
As an ambitious brand, CLIFFCHAINS initially appeared not only in the Hungarian market but also immediately in the international market. We thought it was okay that we had no foreign connections and no market knowledge, but with good creatives, pinpoint advertisements, a sexy core idea, and cool instagram feed it would then sell the product. We were wrong! In 2021, launching a fashion brand and recruiting customers can be done most effectively and cheaply with the help of influencers and opinion leaders. Influencer marketing existed before, it was just called collaboration back then.
Just look at the Converse Chuck Taylor collaboration. Chuck Taylor was not an average basketball player; he worked as a commercial associate at Converse. The rumor was that everyone in the industry knew Chuck, which is why a shoe was named after him. Essentially, Chuck Taylor was an influencer from 100 years ago. The influencer campaign worked, customers started coming, people began to recognize us, and with that, interest in the brand grew. We got so immersed in the campaign that we even managed to sponsor a music video with a million views. music video sponsorship.
For traditional advertising channels, such as Google and Facebook, to convert properly and for remarketing audiences to be built, we need website visitors. We noticed that Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook are increasingly expensive and increasingly difficult at directing users to our website.
TikTok: what you should plan for…
Unless you belong to Generation Z, you likely approach the new social media craze, TikTok, with some reservations.
Initially, everyone said that TikTok would only be popular among Generation Z, yet we see more and more content creators emerging from older age groups. The app's success lies in the fact that instead of high-quality, often staged images, we can see short video content that emphasizes creativity, originality, and entertainment.
TikTok is the perfect platform where you can completely let loose, communicating with your target audience in a funny and light-hearted style. You can create a humorous product presentation, produce entertaining content involving your employees, or participate in TikTok challenges. One thing is for sure, users will appreciate it if you sneak a little humor into your content.
We noticed that a successful video from CLIFFCHAINS resulted in increased website views on that particular day. This served as the basis for later communication and advertisements.
Founded in 2020, CLIFFCHAINS is still in its infancy and we have many ideas and concepts in mind that we would like to implement in the future. Building a brand completely from scratch is exciting in itself, but when we are in the role of client and communication team, that presents the real challenge and fulfillment. We face the difficulties of production, procurement, and delivery, and we must fight our own battles regarding communication ideas.
More information about the brand can be found here!
