REI - C-Suite Presentation - Speaker Notes
- 1. PRESENTATION SPEAKER NOTES 1 I am now! #IAmExploringNow - Presentation Speaker Notes December 4, 2020 Presented by Matt Gilhooly (mgilhooly@ufl.edu)
- 2. PRESENTATION SPEAKER NOTES 2 Slide 1: Good afternoon. My name is Matt Gilhooly. And I am excited to be here today to share the #IAmExploringNow campaign that we've designed for Recreational Equipment, Incorporated. With this campaign, we want to build the REI brand by bringing in new stewards of the outdoors to the REI family. Slide 2: We project that the #IAmExploringNow campaign will see a 167% return on investment. We will achieve this by targeting two underrepresented outdoor consumer groups, as identified by the Outdoor Industry Association, with this campaign. We want these groups to join REI and commit to the outdoors. Through this campaign, REI will grow revenue and its online community. Slide 3: As mentioned, the #IAmExploringNow campaign's target audiences are the sideliner group and the complacent group, identified by the Outdoor Industry Association. These groups currently feel disenfranchised by the outdoor industry, according to the 2015 consumer report. The Sideliner group represents 12% of the outdoor consumer market, and the complacent represents 14%. The sideliner group is 61% female, and most are between the ages of 45 and 65. This group can be found in small towns throughout the United States and regularly interacts on Facebook more than other social media platforms. 62% of this group say that getting outside is something that they want to do more frequently. The Complacent group is about 67% female and in the same age range as a Sideliner group. They're likely to live in the suburbs in the Midwest. 50% of this group say they want to spend more time outdoors. They want to enjoy the benefits of the fresh air and the family
- 3. PRESENTATION SPEAKER NOTES 3 experiences that they can have in the outdoors. This group also regularly engages on Facebook and is part of many different Facebook groups and communities. We feel that REI can inspire these groups to embrace the outdoors and join the REI family. Slide 4: The #IAmExploringNow campaign hopes to raise REI brand awareness by 10% in these sideliner and complacent groups. We also want to expand REI's online community by 2%. We want to bring in 300,000 new stewards of the outdoors. We also want to increase the overall REI lifetime memberships by 0.5% just within the six-month campaign. Slide 5: To meet the campaign goals that I just mentioned, we have two primary components of the #IAmExploringNow campaign. We have a social media contest and a pledge commitment drive. Within the social media contest, we will ask the target audience to share a 60 to 90- second video of them exploring the areas around where they live. We want them to share what they're exploring now and share this video using the hashtag #IAmExploringNow. User videos will show the community that many people like them may also feel disenfranchised by the industry but should not because they are a part of a larger group with similar interests. For the social media contest, we will have a short form launch video that will be shared on social media and will inspire others to participate in the contest. We will also compile many user submissions into a long-form video, similar to the other videos that REI creates like “REI Presents: Paul’s Boots.”
- 4. PRESENTATION SPEAKER NOTES 4 We will also create a microsite for the contest submissions to collect data for REI to use for future communication or marketing campaigns. For the pledge commitment component, we will also create a short form launch video. This video will encourage anyone, including the target audience, to sign a pledge that commits to the outdoors. This component addresses REI’s core purpose goal of outdoor stewardship. We will also develop a microsite to collect data and signatures for this pledge commitment We will launch sponsored articles with videos on Reader’s Digest to appeal to our target demographics for both pieces. Slide 6: On this slide, you will see examples of social media posts used throughout the campaign. These two example posts are for Facebook and Instagram. The posts explain the contest and provide ways for consumers to engage. Slide 7: Here you can see an example of one of the microsites that we will develop for this campaign. There will also be a similar microsite set up for the pledge commitment drive. As mentioned before, throughout this campaign, we will collect information to include in the REI database for future communication needs or campaigns. Slide 8: To create a successful campaign, we will need access to three measurement tools for this campaign, such as Sprout Social, Google Analytics 360, and Drive Research. We will also need to hire three communication coordinators and hire individuals to produce the three videos and the two microsites for the social media contest and the pledge commitment drive. Other expenses
- 5. PRESENTATION SPEAKER NOTES 5 include the paid media we will be running, such as ads and sponsored articles, and the social media contest prizes. Slide 9: We've created a tentative timeline for the #IAmExploringNow campaign. Some of the highlights include creating the assets needed for this campaign in mid-December 2020. We will also set up the measurement tools and dashboards to track our progress. We'll also gather the proper pre-campaign benchmark data. We propose to launch this campaign on January 3, 2021, and end on June 25, 2021. You can also see that on February 1 and May 5, we will run our sponsored articles with videos in Reader’s Digest. The February article will focus on the social media contest, and the May article will highlight the overall campaign and the pledge commitment drive. Also, for increased engagement, we will run a contest voting campaign from June 1 to June 25 to allow other REI followers to vote on video submissions. Slide 10: Now that we've talked about all the campaign components, I want to talk about the exciting part! These are the projected results that we anticipate if we do everything we've talked about thus far. We project, based on benchmark data from the #OptOutside campaign and other successful REI campaigns, we will earn 707,000 total engagements with all of the campaign outputs. We will also see 450,000 mentions of the campaign hashtag. We also anticipate a 12.5% increase in total web traffic from social media posts, sponsored articles, and earned media.
- 6. PRESENTATION SPEAKER NOTES 6 Slide 11: On this slide, you can see our projected conversion rates for memberships and pledges. What we anticipate is a 5% conversion rate from the pledge microsite. We project that at least 5% of the individuals who sign the pledge commitment will purchase a lifetime membership from REI. We also project a 6% conversion to memberships from the total engagements with campaign outputs. We also anticipate that 5% of our paid ads will result in new membership purchases, and 30% of the paid ad spend will lead to new pledge commitments. Slide 12: We believe that this campaign will add over 141,000 new lifetime memberships to the REI community. We also believe that we will have over 339,000 people sign the pledge and commit to the outdoors. Our campaign is projected to grow the REI online community by 115,000 people. Slide 13: So, what does this mean for REI's bottom line? The #IAmExploringNow campaign is projected to bring a return on investment of 167%. With an investment of $1.6 million, we believe this campaign can generate $4.282 million. More details about these calculations can be found in the attached ROI report that you received in your packet today. Slide 14: We're confident in this campaign, and we believe that it will bring in the results that we've talked about today. So, what does this mean for the future? We hope that you will find that this campaign is something that we want to continue. With a yearly contest, we will bring in new consumers each year. It may also be beneficial to start creating specific REI adventures for
- 7. PRESENTATION SPEAKER NOTES 7 these sideliner and complacent consumer groups. Many of these individuals are looking for experiences that are not strenuous but are achievable for their particular capabilities and age group. We also believe that this pledge commitment drive microsite should continue as an ongoing campaign for REI. As this is an altruistic approach, we believe that new stewards will sign the pledge. A continued pledge drive will regularly add information to REI's database regarding people interested in supporting the outdoors. And isn’t that what REI is all about? Promoting, protecting, and engaging with the outdoors. Slide 15: I realize that this is a lot of information, but I wanted to share some of the exciting things we planned for this campaign. I hope you have some time to review the full proposal and the REI report later, but before my time is up today, I would love to provide further details regarding any questions that you may have about this particular campaign. Thank you so much for your time!