It’s not often that we’re stopped in our tracks by a campaign. Color us stunned in a shimmery peppermint glaze.
Visually it’s a win. In theory, it’s the perfect partnership. In action, we have notes.
Hailey Bieber’s Rhode Skin expertly collabed with the Matilda Djerf of Djerf Avenue for a limited holiday edition peptide lip treatment. The aesthetic scratches our brains just right from the lushious glazed lips to the classy Cindy Lou Who hair.
While blending candy cane and shimmer with a Christmas movie reference is not a novel concept, it’s the execution we’re loving. The hair is extra, yet the face is fresh and glowing, quite the contrast to other holiday campaigns of intense sparkly glam and statement lips.
It’s giving the chic Swedish girl look that we all wish we exuded. But alas, we’ll just stare longingly at Matilda.
Rhode has consistently cultivated a loyal audience with stellar marketing campaigns and Hailey at the forefront demonstrating a rhode lifestyle and commitment to quality.
At first glance, this is a fabulous sell, but what lurks beneath is an interesting disconnect and lesson for marketing and PR teams.
From an audience persona and aesthetic perspective, Rhode and Matilda Djerf are a match made in heaven, however, Rhode isn’t available in most of Europe (just France, Germany, Ireland, Italy & Spain).
While Matilda is a global personality with 3.1M Instagram followers herself and 732K Instagram followers for Djerf Avenue, she has a direct proximity and cultural tie to her european audience. An audience that can’t buy into this campaign, unless they live in those 5 countries.
What’s more, now that the launch has had a few days in the sun, consumers are commenting on the checkout experience being less than favorable.
Rhode leveraged influencer marketing to drive buzz with adorably fuzzy packaging. They also didn’t miss out on aligning existing products with the buzz through including minis of skincare products in the box as well as dropping a holiday duo.
Consumers were teased with the opportunity to score a fuzzy ensemble if they were one of the first 500 to place an order during the drop. Yet Rhode operated with a queue system for checkout…
Eager consumers added the furry parcel to their carts and found it removed from cart by the time they got to pay. Rather than creating a frenzy of excitement, loyal fans felt jipped instead of rewarded. Customers were able to snag available inventory from each other's carts in a race to hit “submit payment”.
Many social media comments suggest the excited chaos on TikTok and other social platforms lead to a cutthroat checkout experience. Is the benefit of wild demand and craze worth customer disappointment?
“I am so disappointed and honestly not wanting to purchase from rhode anymore in the future. The package was in my cart and then taken away!” - @alyssastephh (Instagram)
Ticketmaster customers are shaking their heads in empathy.
Drop drama aside, let’s look at the specs; for $18, treat yourself to 0.3 fl oz of nourishing ingredients like shea butter, peptide, cupuaçu, and babassu with a minty shimmer. Consumer feedback from those who actually managed to get the product is seemingly positive so far. The glaze dazzles on its own and also layers beautifully with base liners and or lipstick.
Patiently waiting for drop two…
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