Below are a few recent posts so striking we decided to analyse them and include them in our content library. Given over 90% of the attention brands get on social goes to the top ~5% of (branded) posts, getting an in-depth take on hundreds of top posts is a good way to develop your ‘content muscle,’ gaining inspiration in the process. Get started with this half a dozen.
MAGA vs GAP:
In late July, American Eagle launched its controversial campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, adding oil to the already hot political fire by playing on the ambivalence of the homophone jeans/genes. (Watch the hero YouTube video here or a follow-up on TikTok here, and read our breakdowns in the video description.)
Our analysis of several campaign posts across YouTube (mostly pro-campaign), TikTok (mostly anti-campaign) and Instagram shows that
Those FOR the ad (conservatives) were primarily enthusiastic about “trolling liberals” (e.g. a top comment: “The best part of American Eagles new campaign is the woke meltdown. I'm a fan again.” 15k likes) Is dislike of other people enough to generate a sustainable rise in sales? Unlikely ⬇️.
No doubt AE gained new (conservative) customers, but they seem to have lost at least as many (progressive, younger) customers: sentiment for this major TikTok was 73% negative and 65% brand dilutive
AE’s new brand ‘fans’ barely if ever mention the product itself in the comments, which may explain why website traffic barely budged in August despite the vast amounts of PR the brand received since its July 23 launch.
The share price went up since the campaign came out, but a study reported a decline in store footfall and site traffic is now flat vs July 23
On the other hand, many mention they will “buy the stock”, possibly explaining why the share price grew 70% (Sep 25 update) despite flat YoY quarterly sales.
Sep 25 update: search levels this week are now back to last year’s level, and SEM rush shows organic site traffic is down 10% since the campaign kicked off
The plot twist of course is that two weeks later, GAP snapped back with its own slick response, landing over 7m engagements on TikTok and 1.7m on YouTube (all of it organic*) — several times the engagement AE achieved across all its Sydney Sweeney posts combined. Watch the GAP post and read our analysis (in the video description) here.
*about half of AE’s YouTube and TikTok views for this campaign were paid for. Their most interesting and contemporary post for the campaign may arguably be this one, playing on nostalgia.
2. Brita goes from zero to hero in a few months.
Something happened to Brita this spring. It’s as if someone put social magic powder in the marketing team’s water pitcher, transforming them into social giants overnight.
Out of the 1000 non-alcoholic “drinks” brands we track, Brita moved up from 250 to the top 10 in the past 6 months (#1 in Jul-Aug if you exclude Red Bull), thanks to a range of successful content types. They’ve been especially skilled at sound strategy, creating addictive, ear-catching tunes backed by 1st-rate storytelling around “couple life,” college life.. If you want to gain a foothold into the Brita social oeuvre, may we suggest you start with this one, or that one.
Expect Brita’s growth to be sustained. Social owned excellence is a skill under 5% of brands achieve — and those that do kick off virtuous cycles (e.g. via trial, UGC, comments)
Brita’s owned social success coincided with a sudden rise in search and organic site traffic. (above)
PLEASING launches adult toys
One of the very best owned posts of the summer came from Harry Styles’s brand, Pleasing, known to date for its beauty and apparel products, when it teased the launch of adult toys. We often find that the top 5% of posts today are suggestive rather than explicit, adopting a show-don’t-tell storytelling mode, one that invites viewers to co-create meaning by connecting dots (faces, smiles, stickers, sounds, gasps, caption etc.).
This co-creation experience turns viewers into participants who feel compelled to add their own take in the comments. The launch post received over 700k engagements on TikTok, but this teaser was arguably a higher quality post excelling at implicit storytelling.
