Logitech SG jumps on Clubhouse session to reach Millennial Apple users

Electronic accessories and software firm Logitech recently jumped on audio app platform Clubhouse to create a brand awareness, and to build its brand leadership with Millennials Apple users. Done in collaboration with influencer marketing agency Kobe, the campaign saw Logitech holding a 45-minute Clubhouse stream with a theme centred around a quiz called "This or That'' where audiences could choose between two options provided.

The questions revolved around lifestyle choices, and engaged the audience by getting them to heed over to Kobe’s Instagram to express their preferences. Some of the questions included "Hustle vs TaiTai life?", "Work-from-home vs office life?", and "Simple desk set up vs efficient set up?" 

Apart from the interactive polls and the engaging sharing sessions, Logitech also held a giveaway event, which acted as an incentive for users to tune into the Clubhouse stream. There were two giveaways during the live event, one during the midway point of the stream and the other at the end of the stream. Items such as Logitech's bluetooth keyboard for Apple devices and Logitech wireless mouse were given as prizes.

To drum up hype for the event, Logitech worked with three influencers @j.jaikishan, @johnathanchua, and @leeshuhadah to release teasers for its 45-minute Clubhouse stream on their Instagram pages. According to Kobe, the influencers' teasers ad on Instagram had gotten thousands of impression each, and saw 139 Instagram users clicking into the Clubhouse link.   

In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, a spokesperson from Kobe said the idea to launch a Clubhouse campaign ties in with Logitech's "willingness to seek innovation and venture into new marketing platforms/tools as a brand".

As clubhouse is relatively new and it is only available to Apple users at the moment, Kobe suggested to Logitech Singapore that Clubhouse would be a great platform to ride on since the products they want to promote are only compatible with Apple products. "It was the right platform, targeting the right users," the spokesperson said.

The concept of Logitech's campaign took about one week to conceptualise, and the brand wanted the stream to be interactive and new from what other clubhouse users are doing. "Clubhouse rooms are usually led by a panel of speakers, and participants tune in to listen real-time conversations. We wanted more than that - we wanted interaction from the participants and hence weaved that as part of our concept. We then took another two weeks to pair, secure suitable talents, plan scripts and trial run together with the talents before finalising the details," Kobe's spokesperson added. 

While the spokesperson declined to comment on the exact monetary investment in the campaign, he said it was similar to the other over 500 influencer marketing campaigns that the agency executed. Tied to outcomes and objectives, agnostic to social media platforms and regardless of man-hours, these campaigns can range between SG$17,000 to SG$45,000 each. 

Overall, the Clubhouse session saw over 35 listeners' participation. "Although this is a niche campaign targeted at only Apple users, we have seen over 50% in engagement rate when the influencers asked the listeners to head over to Instagram and participate in the interactive poll. It was a multi-platform strategy where people could listen in on Clubhouse, and go to Instagram to interact. Digital natives ace multi-platforms and capitalizing on their savviness and quick attention spans, the strategy proved successful with engagement rates 15 times above the industry average," Kobe's spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.

However, there were still some downsides when it comes to launching a campaign on Clubhouse. Since the audio app is not yet mainstream, the spokesperson said the campaign was not able to capture high volumes of eyeballs unlike more established platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Furthermore, the barrier of entry for Clubhouse is still pretty high for now as only invited users with Apple devices can use the platform. But these factors do not stop Logitech's use of the new platform. The brand is planning for future episodes with a sequential narrative on topics of technology and lifestyle, to remain native on the platform and build thought leader branding, the spokesperson revealed.

Recently, Clubhouse was embroiled in a supposed data security incident. Over the weekend, online publication CyberNews reported that personal information of 1.3 million users of Clubhouse were leaked on a "popular hacker forum". The information said to be leaked include user ID, name, username, photo URL, social media account handles (Twitter and Instagram), the profile name that the user was invited by, and more. Following the news, Clubhouse released a statement on its Twitter account yesterday refuting the allegations. 

"This is misleading and false. Clubhouse has not been breached or hacked. The data referred to is all public profile information from our app, which anyone can access via the app or our API," the audio platform said.

https://twitter.com/joinClubhouse/status/1381066324105854977?s=20

This incident comes one month after Clubhouse encountered a genuine data breach. According to multiple media reports, including Bloomberg, at least one cyber attacker proved that Clubhouse's live audio can be stolen. Quoting Clubhouse's spokesperson, Bloomberg said over the weekend, "an unidentifiable user" could stream Clubhouse audio feeds from "multiple rooms into their own third-party website". Bloomberg said the user has been "permanently banned" and Clubhouse has put in place "new safeguards" to prevent the reoccurrence of such a situation.

Clubhouse also said in February that it is reviewing its data protection practices following a Stanford Internet Observatory report that the app has security flaws that "left users' data vulnerable to access by the Chinese government". Despite Clubhouse being banned in China, Reuters reported that some users had found a loophold to download the app. This meant that the conversations they participated in could be transmitted via Chinese servers, Reuters added.

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