Sunday, March 16, 2008

Social Media-zing Lancome's "Your Guide to a Fabulous Kiss" Email Campaign

It's a rainy day in Georgia and just as I was wishing for something to distract me from gray skies into my email in box popped this message: Your Guide to a Fabulous Kiss from Lancome. Well Girlfriend, who could resist a click to open that one? Of course I knew it would be a promotion but I was anticipating fun and flirty. A prelude to Valentine's Day perhaps.

The copy drew me in. Yes! Red stilettos, cocktail dress and a hot midnight affair would be lovely diversions as I sipped coffee and procrastinated which project to tackle next. I was ready to take a break. I was ready to play with the brand.

Click. I engaged. I was taken to a product page. Where was my Guide to a Fabulous Kiss?? So I click on another link and another and another. Guess I made Lancone's stats soar (smile). I saw lipsticks in lovely shades but where was there the Guide to a Fabulous Kiss? Needless to say, I was disappointed and became less enchanted with the promotion because it didn't deliver what I anticipated.

Sidebar: Note the subtle language change above. I went from "my Guide to a Fabulous Kiss" to "the Guide to a Fabulous Kiss."

Well, diva dahlings, I still was not ready to go back to work. I began to imagine how Lancome could have taken what started as a promising email campaign and turned it into a fun, flirty consumer generated content strategy. Let's play with the wonderful headline - Your Guide to a Fabulous Kiss.

Perhaps the guide begins with asking - What is a kiss? .. and don't get x-rated on me. Keep it clean and sophisticated. A kiss could be a kindness to someone that shows how much you care.

Then it moves into asking you to tell the the story of your first kiss and or perhaps your most memorable kiss. Which might be the kiss you gave your new born bebe. Or the kiss you received from your dad before you went to college.

A la American Idol .. ends with people uploading videos singing one of my favorite songs from Casablanca .. As Time Goes By.  You must remember this A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.

How about a joint promotion with NECCO to create a new sweetheart saying for the famous
candy heart that actually is produced for Valentine's Day? We could add a widget and a Flickr page and have the community vote. Make your own candy heart.

Perhaps it ends with a kiss of kindness - a charity chosen by the winner.


Lessons Learned: Great copy can draw in your customers but take care to understand what expectations might occur. Try new ways to engage your customers with your brand that is personal and meaningful to  them.