The EASTPAK Insider Trail Experience
The EASTPAK Insider Trail Experience
Overview
On 28th August 2012, a mysterious individual called The Insider hid £5,000 somewhere in London and invited the public to find it. From 1st September for 3 weeks, videos were released via the http://insidertrail.eastpak.com/ website, revealing clues to the location of the cash and challenging the participants to discover it. All participants solved more clues along the route, and texted their answers back to the Insider, who in turn responded positively or negatively. With the cash still undiscovered, a major “Showdown” was run on 22nd September, with everyone solving the final clues simultaneously, until a lucky team found the cash.
Impact
We connected with our target consumer via social media, and got over 800 people to enter for effectively only 200 places. Total reach of the programme hit a PR estimated editorial value of 2:1, with an editorial audience of c.6 million, and 500,000 people via social media alone.
Innovation
This was a highly original project, working alongside HiddenCity, who are experts in Trail experiences throughout the UK. And the idea of a premium brand, such as EASTPAK, hiding a bag full of cash someone in London is something that we know our competitors have never done before![/one_half_last]
Insight
With hindsight, we would have spread the work further to a more “mainstream” consumer, and opened out the number of places to more than 200 people. But we kept our audience tight, looking at only our core consumers – 18-24year-olds “urban insiders”, who want to “connect with their City” (here London) and “their friends”; who “seek the stories beneath the surface”, and who want to “create resistance against boredom and banality”.
Inspiration
We’d like to inspire other brands or businesses to create exciting projects that aim entirely at their target consumer, that speak directly to the sort of person that should be buying their brand, and giving them something exciting and entertaining to engage in. The EASTPAK brand in London has connected with new consumers by opening new accounts who heard about the project and wanted to get involved with us, and by generating additional excitement within the press via a unique concept.[/one_half_last]
Speaker
Claire Cosgrove
Marketing Manager, UK, Ireland & Scandinavia
Eastpak
Claire Cosgrove has been a Marketeer for nearly 20 years. Currently working as Marketing Manager at The VF Corporation for Eastpak, she has represented such prestigious lifestyle brands as Levi’s, Timberland, and Speedo at various levels across her career. She was part of the team responsible in the late 1990’s for re-invigorating the Timberland brand (helped in no small part by a pair of classic boots given to David Beckham!), and for driving the critically-acclaimed collaboration between Ellesse and Eley Kishimoto. Her diverse experience led her to create the Eastpak Insider Trail, for which the brand is nominated at the 2013 Peer Awards.