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 cauldron 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 top campaign posts across YouTube (most pro-campaign), TikTok (most anti-campaign) and Instagram reveals 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)
These new ‘fans’ barely if ever mention the product itself, which may explain why website traffic barely budged in August despite the vast amounts of PR the brand received.
The share price went up since the campaign came out, but sales dipped and are now flat vs July 23
Many in the comments do mention they will “buy the stock,” which may explain why the share price has been surging and veering into meme-stock territory while YoY quarterly sales were flat.
Two weeks later, GAP snapped back with its own slick response, which landed 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 (top 4 if you exclude energy drinks), thanks to a range of successful content types and storytelling modes. They’ve been especially skilled at sound strategy, creating several addictive, ear-catching tunes, backed by 1st-rate storytelling around “couple life.” (e.g. apparently men are worse at refilling the Brita!). 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.
