AdNews' Sarah Homewood looks at how Kathmandu used Twitter to get its brand in front of a younger audience.
Travel and adventure brand Kathmandu has utilised Twitter's promoted video offering to get its brand in-front of a younger audience.
Find out below how the brand was able to reap the rewards of engaging with its target audience utilising a range of Twitter's tools.
The challenge
Travel and adventure brand Kathmandu wanted to reach a younger audience and drive traffic to its website. The brand also sought to build engagement with existing customers by creating conversations around aspirational travel destinations.
The strategy
Kathmandu created short video montages of magnificent locations and asked users to share their own travel ambitions with the question: “If you could only take one trip, where would you go?” It used a promoted account and promoted tweets with the hashtag #OpenTheWorld to reach a wider audience. Working closely with its media agency - Group M Connect - in defining this strategy and activating the campaigns, Kathmandu also used promoted video to increase engagement, complemented with focused keyword and interest targeting on travel. Kathmandu’s in-house customer service team monitored and responded to replies from Twitter users for better real-time engagement.
The tactics
Draw in the audience with compelling video: Kathmandu created rich video content full of stunning scenery and happy adventurers from years of archived video and shoot B-roll. It used promoted video to reach a wide audience and to get them thinking of the places they could travel to.
Choose a hashtag that drives engagement: Kathmandu used Promoted Tweets with the hashtag #OpenTheWorld to intrigue users and encourage conversations around travel aspirations. Many people joined in to talk about the locations they’d love to visit before visiting the website to learn more.
Use advanced targeting to find your audience: Kathmandu reached a more responsive audience through keyword targeting of popular travel and camping blogs, as well as interest targeting for Adventure, Holidays and Globetrotting. The brand also used Tailored Audience targeting to reconnect with past mailing list subscribers and visitors.
The results
Kathmandu saw results on Twitter that exceeded those from previous campaigns and other platforms. The campaign achieved over 60,000 video views, with a 30% view-to-completion rate — 15% higher than average across all social media platforms. Site visits from Twitter users were high in quality, with time spent on site 67% longer than in previous campaigns. Cost per view (CPV) for the best performing video was $0.05. The company credits Twitter’s targeting tools with making the difference by bringing the content to the audience most receptive to its message.
Social media manager for Kathmandu, Paul Lester says: “Twitter’s sophisticated targeting tools allowed us to put content in front of people who have interests aligned with our brand values. It also enabled us to reconnect with existing customers and get them involved in the conversation.”