Valentine’s Day is often associated with long-stem roses, heart-shaped candies, and Hallmark cards. But sometimes these tangible tokens replace the sharing of sentiments Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about. So instead of running a commercial that mimicked the “cheesy” card shop experience, Evian allowed consumers to express themselves through social with its “I Love You Like” campaign.
“People are often reluctant to get caught up in the usual Valentine’s cliches, so we’re hoping this campaign encourages them to have some fun with their loved ones instead,” said Laurence Foucher, global digital manager at Evian, in the campaign’s official press release.
To participate, social savvy consumers can share Evian’s “I Love You Like” valentines—which include messages such as “I love you like a chef loves an empty plate,” or “I love you like Jamaica loves their bobsled team”—along with the #ILoveYouLike hashtag.
“Once we got an original content idea, it was about how can we really drive engagement around this concept?” says Amy Hambridge, account director for social media agency We Are Social. “That’s when we started looking at the social channels available.”
Evian let its Cupid consumers spread their love through Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. And while Evian produced content for all of its markets, each local market was responsible for determining the best ways to leverage that content and engage its regional markets, Hambridge says. For example, Evian posted the phrase “I love you like” on its Facebook page and asked consumers to fill in the blank with their own comparisons. Some local markets—including France, the UK, and the US—rewarded participants with candy from Evian partner and professional tennis player Maria Sharapova: Sugarpova.
Evian also encouraged people to tweet their Valentine’s Day messages along with the hashtag to its UK and US Twitter handles. In addition, the brand pinned its content on Pinterest along with generic hashtags, such as #love, so that its “I Love You Like” images would show up in more search queries. And to stay true to Instagram’s organic nature, Evian hid its “I Love You Like” messages in photos displaying real-life scenarios. For example, the mineral water brand showed an “I Love You Like” picture that featured headphones lying next to a smartphone with the words “headphones love knotting” on the phone’s screen.
The campaign, which also promotes Evian’s ‘Live Young’ campaign, launched on February 5 and is running until February 14. Evian accumulated more than 1.2 million Twitter outreach impressions within the the first 48 hours of the campaign, Hambridge says.
“The benefits of launching a campaign like this on social [is that it] gives the ability to reach a large amount of people in a very cost effective and engaged way,” she says.
And like in any relationship, a brand’s relationship with its social consumers needs to be built on communication and a sense of give-and-take.
“The biggest mistake is when you think too much about what your brand message is, and it becomes too much of a push message on social,” Hambridge says. “Ultimately, it’s all about driving conversation. You’re not going to drive that conversation unless the content that you’re creating resonates with your audience.”
