Secret Sofa by Häagen-Dazs 

Influencer Marketing Activation 

Executive Summary​

For 8 Fridays between April and June 2020, thousands of people across the country took part in a completely reimagined, immersive, multi-platform film experience.

Secret Sofa presented by Häagen-Dazs brought communal cinema events into the home, using social channels to draw participants into the stories and worlds around some of our best-loved films.

With character narratives, thematic content, unique serves, live interaction and discussion and era history and costumes, fans joined the story every week as it unfolded via influencers and participants across Facebook live, Instagram, Tik-Tok, email, partner and influencer channels.

An Amazon Prime Now partnership brought rotating ice cream flavours, serves and challenges, inspiring households to create and share their own experiences around each event. Brand collaborations with Sipsmith, Piper-Heidsieck Champagne and Jack Daniel’s led to extraordinary content, amplified by influencers across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

The work achieved unprecedented positive sentiment and a dramatic sales uplift for the brand, creating new ‘cultural moments’ that brought multiple communities together in a holistic way over multiple platforms.

Facebook has highlighted the campaign as a best-in-class case study, following more than 115,000 reactions including over 20,000 and 64,000 shares of #SecretSofa and #HaagIndoors respectively.

Secret Sofa presented by Häagen-Dazs was a hugely effective pivot borne of agile partnership, a supportive ethos and unified vision to keep creating moments of joy and togetherness.

Brief Summary of Campaign

Häagen-Dazs believe that little luxuries uplift the everyday and their brand mission is to bring moments of joy and real connections over an ice cream. During the uncertainty of lockdown, their #HaagIndoors initiative reframed this mission with a simple message to stay safe and keep sharing these little moments of joy.  

Amidst the uncertainty of early lockdown, people found new ways to connect with communities and share experiences beyond four walls. From Zoom to Fortnight to livestreamed gigs, there were many creative uses of platforms and channel that inspired and brought people together. 

But few aimed for the rounded immersion and more realistic communal experience people craved.

To help deliver against this, Häagen-Dazs collaborated with Secret Cinema to introduce a completely new kind of immersive film experience, that brought communities of film lovers together every Friday evening for eight weeks. Facilitating a virtual in-home screening of Secret Cinema’s most celebrated and critically acclaimed films, as well as lesser-known gems. Audience members were encouraged to build their Secret World in their living room and share images / videos on social media, to amplify Secret Sofa further and unite our audience each week.

The campaign used a variety of social channels to build narratives over time and in different ways, to create something more akin to the real world. It was immersive, participative and imaginative, and created ongoing opportunities to drive brand consideration and positive sentiment for Häagen-Dazs as well as build sales conversion on Amazon Prime Now. Instagram content was up-weighted for frequent and consistent messaging alongside driving product purchase. TikTok provided impactful brand awareness and brand consideration, showcasing light hearted content that we’ve all come to know and love from this platform. Viewers were also encouraged to share their best #HaagIndoors images on social media with the best one winning a week’s supply of ice-cream.

Each weekly screening was preceded by email newsletters, live content, stories, serve ideas and associated ice cream flavours, introducing the film of the week and how to access. Pre screening narratives distributed to participants also encouraged the audience to dress up as key characters, learn choreographed dances, make props and create playlists. Viewers also had the opportunity to attend virtual after parties streamed live via Zoom, amplifying the excitement of this at home experience.

Recipients also received a secret weekly code to order the Häagen-Dazs flavour of the week exclusively delivered to their living rooms by Amazon Prime Now.

The social content campaign was Häagen-Dazs’s longest and first multi-platform influencer marketing amplification, and also a global debut for the brand on social media platform TikTok. Twenty-four nano and micro-influencers across Instagram and TikTok came together to produce creator-led content and actions every week around each film and the corresponding flavour; including special recipe creations. Friday was the day of celebration of all the user generated content from across the week, celebrating the memories and creativity of our audience and the film.

Over the course of the campaign, Secret Sofa drove social buzz and at-home inspiration via Häagen-Dazs collaborations. Sipsmith Gin for ‘Casino Royale’, ‘Romeo+ Juliet’ Rival House Serves with Piper-Heidsieck Champagne and an iconic American 80s style cola float with Jack Daniel’s for the ‘Ghostbusters’ finale; the perfect sweet spot for an indulgent #HaagIndoors movie night in.

Dubbed as the “highlight of their lockdown” by fans across the UK, this campaign delivered unprecedented positive sentiment on social media. #HaagIndoors was a pioneering best-in-class industry pivot that created a new ‘cultural moment’ bringing together multiple communities. In these unprecedented times Häagen-Dazs became a voice of support, they brought entertainment to those who have been restricted to their homes and they showed solidarity that everyone's in this together.

A hugely effective pivot borne of agile partnership, a supportive ethos and unified vision to keep creating moments of joy and togetherness. The work achieved a dramatic sales uplift for the brand, leveraging social and adapting to a completely new context to embody the brand’s and its partner’s missions.

Objectives

The campaign’s primary objectives were to drive awareness of the new Secret Sofa initiative, drive brand consideration and positive sentiment for Häagen-Dazs as well as build sales conversion on Amazon Prime Now.

Secret Sofa’s aim was to be a platform through which viewers could relive a cinema experience they’ve loved or missed, inviting joy back into the home during an isolating time.

Build a digital community for announcements, user-generated content and conversation.

We sought to get a little closer to the rounded immersion of real life and communal experiences by building a narrative over several weeks across different social channels.

Together, Häagen-Dazs and Secret Cinema wanted to create a brand-new cinema experience that

encouraged film lovers to create their own immersive cinemas at home, and enjoy a famous film from the comfort of their own sofas every Friday night in a way that created a sense of a shared, communal experience.

By engaging each other online, and amplifying through social content with the help of influencers across multiple platforms, viewers would be given the opportunity to get creative in their living rooms and enjoy a communal film viewing every week.

Week-on-week sales of Häagen-Dazs increased nearly two-fold on Amazon during the targeted eight-week multi-platform influencer marketing campaign.

Häagen-Dazs saw its buzz scores significantly increase (growing nearly 4X among females) and consideration scores hit a peak being at a higher level than it was over its latest 2 year period in 2018 /19.

Secret Sofa campaign attracted over 80,000 new subscribers for Häagen-Dazs’s campaign partner Secret Cinema on the back of the influencer outreach.

Influencer content resulted in almost three times more engagement than the industry benchmark and achieved the highest ever campaign engagement for Häagen-Dazs in the UK on Instagram. It also resulted in driving awareness via 80,000 new subscribers to the Secret Sofa initiative.

Across the 450+ influencer assets created over the 8-week period, almost 3 million content views were achieved, generating over 450,000 actions including over 60,000 actions via Instagram Stories, and engagement rates of 18.9% and 4.15% on TikTok and Instagram respectively.

A highly engaged Secret Sofa by Häagen-Dazs digital community was also created on Facebook with nearly 13,000 members sharing user-generated content of their thematic film, costume and ice cream experiences.

The campaign was highlighted as a best-in-class case study in community by the social media platform following more than 115,000 reactions including over 84,000 shares of #SecretSofa and #HaagIndoors.

100k engagements

12k views during 8 Watch Parties

3,124 pieces of User Generated Content

Client testimonials