To generate buzz about the release of the iPhone 14, Indian electronics retailer Croma sent puzzling hampers of fruit to prominent influencers.
Objective:
India has a considerable user base for Apple iPhones, and according to a recent report by the research agency Techarc, the country is going to approach close to seven million units of total iPhone sales in 2022.
iPhones have a huge aspirational value among the Indian audience, which is responsible for a steady switch from the Android operating system to iOS. Leveraging this sentiment, Croma, an Indian omni-channel electronics retailer from the Tata Group, hosts a yearly property named #BreakfastWithApple, in which it delivers the latest iPhone on the first day of the international launch, first thing in the morning. Additionally, people who pre-book the latest iPhones can visit the store and collect them on the same day as the worldwide release.
Even though #BreakfastWithApple is a regular brand property, not many people knew about it. So, the challenge was to overcome this roadblock and make #BreakfastWithApple synonymous with the launch of a new iPhone for the pre-bookers.
With Apple's latest model, iPhone 14, being launched globally on September 7th, 2022 and on September 16th, 2022 in India, the campaign was centered on pre-booking. The aim was to build hype, spread awareness, and get Apple lovers to pre-book their phones on croma.com.
Target Audience:
The campaign primarily targeted people belonging to the 22-to-40-year-old age group (all genders). Every year, a considerable segment of this audience eagerly waits for their iPhone's new and upgraded version. And, every year, Croma invites pre-bookers to have #BreakfastWithApple.
The campaign communication was aimed at both existing and potential iOS users. Croma took an approach that resonated with the existing iPhone user base, while being relatable to the general audience in order to best drive them toward the product and in turn toward the brand's website to make the purchase.
Creative Strategy:
To create hype around a property that not too many people knew about, Croma sought to create a gimmicky moment and create buzz about the pre-booking of iPhone 14 with a twist. The company developed a plan that helped it to leverage the curiosity of people and that used influencer marketing very tactically.
Croma enlisted A-list influencers to riff on the correlation between apple (the fruit) and Apple (the brand and phone). Croma did this by surprising several Instagram influencers with a bizarre gift hamper of 14 round, red apples.
Influencers are used to receiving gifts and samples from brands and sharing their "unboxings" with their followers on their social media accounts. By sending them a gift as bizarre as a basket of apples from an electronics retailer like Croma, the company added a novel twist to standard practice. And needless to say, the influencers were understandably confused, which got their followers confused — and curious, too.
Context:
While this was the first year of the campaign, #BreakfastWithApple is a yearly property by Croma, in which the retailer delivers the latest iPhone on the first day of launch.
Overall Campaign Execution:
For Croma's #BreakfastWithApple campaign, a gift hamper with 14 real apples was sent out to influencers, like Danish Sait, Dolly Singh, Kunal Chhabriaa, Kareema Barry, Anmol Sachar, and others on a random morning. These influencers were handpicked for their strong follower bases on Instagram. They took to their Instagram Stories to share their curiosity and amusement with their followers.
When the influencers shared this bizarre phenomenon on their Instagram Stories, wondering at the reason behind it, it generated curiosity among their followers, which soon spread to the wider audience.
The influencers later discovered that the hamper also included a QR code that led them to the pre-booking page for Apple's iPhone 14. QR technology has been inspiring unique executions in marketing campaigns for quite some time now, but for this campaign, Croma leveraged it to enhance the story-telling experience and reveal the call to action at a later stage.
Further, for the lead-up to this activity, Croma populated social media with just the number 14 without context to pique up the audience's interest. And to close the loop, Instagram trends that were popular among the target group (such as "s/he is a 10 but..") were customized to promote the phone's feature by saying "s/he is a 14". Molding the trending moments strategically helped the brand blend into the audience's favorite social media trends and stand out from the crowd at the same time.
Lastly, Croma started Twitter banter with a post saying "we're the 1...4 you", re-emphasizing the number "14."
Apart from the marketing efforts, delivering the latest model of the iPhones to the pre-bookers was also an integral part of the campaign. More than 75 deliveries were made before 9:00 AM on the day of the international launch.
Mobile Execution:
Instagram was the primary platform for the campaign, and almost all of the campaign's budget went into mobile execution.
Croma's sales surged by 53 percent in FY22 (2021-22), garnering a total revenue of INR83.37 billion. (However, the brand's net losses also increased to INR4.44 billion from INR2.01 billion in FY21.)
The influencer Stories garnered over 655,000 views and over 9,000 link clicks.
The campaign also led to a 45 percent increase in iPhone orders (as compared to the previous iPhone launch). As a ripple effect, a 40 percent increase was also observed in the sale of other Apple products.
