#Hashtag Asia Awards 2021 highlight: Lazada Philippines uses power of shoppertainment for birthday bash

As Southeast Asia’s leading eCommerce platform, Lazada wanted to drum up conversation and engagement with its audience. To drive top-of-mind awareness, Lazada, together with UM Philippines, decided to launch a campaign to mark its upcoming birthday celebration in the Philippines. The campaign leading up to Lazada’s big birthday bash was so impressive that the team clinched the silver award for Best Social Amplification Campaign and was a finalist for Best Social Media Campaign: Southeast Asia at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Hashtag Asia 2021 Awards.

Challenge

Online shopping has become more than just a commercial transaction, especially with COVID-19 measures restricting outdoor activities. Dubbed “Shoppertainment”, online shopping is now merged with entertainment and social experiences such that a customer’s online purchase journey is enhanced with engaging content such as games with giveaways or even interactions with celebrities.  

With the rise of “Shoppertainment”, Lazada understood that it had to meet such expectations from its shoppers or lose out to competitors in a highly saturated online retail environment. The current pandemic situation also meant that all campaign activities had to be held online in order to circumvent pandemic-related restrictions.

Solution

Lazada decided to turn to Twitter to bring its “shoppertainment” event to life. The team knew that Twitter was home for entertainment conversations across different topics such as K-pop and celebrity news and was also the platform to connect to big shopping moments. “Shoppertainment” for this big birthday bash was materialized as a fun-filled online party and live stream.

Named the Lazada Super Party, the virtual concert was headlined by K-pop act NCT Dream and pop queen Katy Perry. The virtual concert also included performances by local stars such as Mimiyuuuh, Alden Richards and Lovi Poe among others. The show served as a countdown for the platform’s Birthday Sale which started at midnight after the evening concert. By bringing in global, regional, and local musical acts, Lazada was able to reach out to different subsections of the general audience and cater to the different ideals of “shoppertainment”. 

Execution

Lazada leveraged the Tease, Reveal, and Reinforce approach on Twitter to bring its “shoppertainment” strategy to life and drive campaign success.

1. Tease: 

Three weeks before the campaign launch, Lazada tapped into the power of celebrity fandoms by using Influencer Allowlisting to amplify the conversation surrounding the headliners; NCT Dream and Katy Perry. Lazada promoted tweets from these two artists mentioning the campaign hashtag #LazadaSuperParty. This enabled Lazada to drive hype and connect to the fans’ conversation authentically.

Local artists, on the other hand, were featured in a creative video which was promoted through Conversation Buttons. The clear call-to-action message and customised hashtags encouraged fans to spread the word on the upcoming Super Party. To connect to its target audience's passion for entertainment, Lazada used Amplify Pre-roll which served the campaign video ads alongside premium entertainment and lifestyle publisher content (eg. MTV, E! Entertainment) as pre-rolls on Twitter.

2. Reveal: 

On the day of the Super Party event, Lazada activated both a Timeline Takeover and Trend Takeover using the hashtag #LazadaSuperParty for a 24-hour takeover of Twitter’s top trend list and priority access to people’s first impression of the day; a huge reminder of the impending concert. The concert livestream on Twitter was promoted as an ad too in real-time. Discount codes were also featured during the livestream to further engage users. 

3. Reinforce: 

Following the massive positive reactions to the Super Party, Lazada seized the post-concert momentum by announcing the extension of the birthday sale through another set of Timeline Takeover and Trend Takeover. The tweet communicated the offer of free shipping to prompt customers to make their purchases; encouraging them to share the tweet too. Lazada continued to promote the recording of the livestreamed Super Party to further drive top of mind awareness.

Results

The campaign saw great results in conversation and engagement. There was a 203% increase in brand mentions and 19K mentions on launch day alone. Across the campaign period, the brand saw 76K mentions of the brand with a 94% positive and neutral sentiment. This was a 9% increase from the previous year’s birthday and anniversary period according to the social listening tool Brandwatch.

Using Twitter’s advertising solutions, Lazada was able to drum up tremendous excitement, views, and engagement for their Lazada Super Party livestream. In total, the campaign garnered 230K engagements on Twitter which ranged from conversations around the Super Party, the starstudded performance, to sharings of their purchases from Lazada website. Ultimately, the success of the campaign was a testament to the effectiveness of Lazada’s “shoppertainment concept” and is proof of Lazada’s commitment to cater to the ever-changing demands of online shoppers.