Macy’s Interactive Status Update

Recently, Macy’s ran an interactive scratch promotional campaign through their Facebook page featuring a new boutique within their stores. From our perspective, it was a way to build buzz and bring attention to not only the Macy’s brand but the new boutique offering as well.

After doing a bit of research about Macy’s social media and advertising strategies, using a scratch campaign appears to be a natural fit. As a company, they are very familiar with their target market. They know that this ideal customer spends a fair amount of time on image heavy social channels– Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

As social channels become more visual, authentic images become a more effective way to communicate with customers. Being able to shop and make purchases within social media channels is becoming available and customers seem to be taking advantage.

But can it be done in a news feed?

At Scratch-it, one of our goals is to bring the scratching experience to life via social media. We want to make it easy for customers to experience a Scratch-it while scrolling through their feeds. The Scratch-it experience is a natural fit to help drive business through image heavy social media. What the Macy’s scratch campaign showed us is customer interest and the willingness to engage. When presented with the promotion image in their news feed, customers were prompted to click on a link, which took them to a scratchable image. But what if it were scratchable right in the feed? That’s where we’re headed and we’re excited about it.

How effective was it?

Although unaware of the metrics behind their campaign, we do know that about 42 seconds per customer was spent interacting with the ad. To us, that says a lot. That tells us that people were interested enough to 1) click on the link and 2) scratch the image for almost a full minute. This not only validates our mission but tells us that shoppers are ready for and receptive to this type of marketing. Macy’s knew their target customers were smart, socially engaged and aware of when they were being marketed to. Using a scratch promotion was a new way to engage and educate them on their brand.

We applaud Macy’s for taking the plunge into new digital advertising waters and offering something new to their socially savvy audience. As purveyors of this interactive technology, we would love to know how their customers responded and what success they saw. We already have some ideas in mind for their next campaign…

So, give us a call, Macy’s–  whatever metrics you’re looking at from this past scratch promotion, we’re pretty confident that Scratch-it will double them.