We would like to introduce a case study of "Lemon Square," an influencer platform operated by C Channel. This time, we interviewed Mr. Keita Suzuki, Advertising Division, CHIFURE CORPORATION.
Through Lemon Square, Chifure was able to get "people in their 20s and 30s, whom they would like to become their fans," to use their skin whitening serum.
-Please tell us about the products you promoted through Lemon Square.
The product is called "Chifure Whitening Essence W." Our main sales channel is physical stores, such as drugstores, GMS (general merchandise stores), convenience stores,etc. Recently, we have also started selling our products through e-commerce and online stores.
-What are the features and strengths of "Chifure Whitening Essence W" ?
As the product name "W" suggests, it contains double active ingredients for whitening, which are arbutin and vitamin c derivative.
The fact that it contains these two ingredients and is petit-priced and refillable is a rare and significant feature.
-Who are your users?
The current purchasing age is in the 30s and 40s, which is the largest volume zone.
We have set 20s to 30s as our promotional target, thus we would like to promote our products to a younger generation .
-You used Lemon Square to build a relationship with users in their 20s and 30s. Please tell us more about the details of the promotions you conducted.
First of all, it is about the influencers who helped us with this project. we gifted a total of 200 influencers in their 20s and 30s who are interested in beauty and whitening, and we hoped that they would contribute spontaneously.
Considering the recent purchasing behavior of users, it is not enough for a brand to send out information, but it is very important to have posts and reviews from other users.
In this promotion, we not only wanted the influencers to spread the word about "Chifure Whitening Essence W", but we also wanted them to become our fans themselves.
There are several companies that have influencers, but C Channel's Lemon Square has many micro-influencers who are similar to ordinary people.
I think it was a good fit for us , as we wanted to give a chance to use the products by our target audience first.
-Lemon Square's influencers and the product's promotion strategy matched, didn't they?
Yes, that's right.
If all we would like to do was to spread awareness of the good points of the product, we could have asked a highly recognized influencer to do one big promotion.
However, we would like to make the product known more widely and to a variety of people. We also would like to use this as an opportunity to make people become fans of our products, thus we asked Lemon Square to help us do that."
The various attractive aspects of the products can be naturally presented to the public. Influencers' posts have a different persuasive power than official information.
-What kind of posts did you expect from the influencers?
What we expected from the influencers was a different perspective and content from the information the brand side was sending out. For example, we wanted the influencers to post information about what was good about the product and what they liked about it.
For example, the thick texture was good, the size was easy to use, or the product was good for me because of my own circumstances. If the brand side sends this kind of information, it will come across as intrusive.
UGC (UGC by users who have actually used the product) naturally reaches other users, and it also provides unexpected and unique expressions and ways of presenting them, revealing to the world various positive aspects that the brand side had not noticed.
-I think you are right about the strength of UGC. Could you tell us why you decided to take the UGC approach this time?
When we think about the purchasing process these days, word of mouth and UGC on SNS are certainly important. It is clear that even if it is not the deciding factor in purchasing, it is still a route that many people take.
If a product they are interested in does not appear when you search for it on SNS, they may get the wrong impression that the product is no longer sold, or that it is not very good and leave the purchasing process.
The number of posts about "Chifure Whitening Essence W" is still very small, and we feel that increasing UGC is an urgent issue.
I believe that people in their 40s and 50s who buy "Chifure Whitening Essence W" also look at SNS, but they are not as active in posting as people in their 10s and 20s. Therefore, existing users are unlikely to increase UGC.
We needed to get influencers in their 20s and 30s to use "Chifure Whitening Essence W" in order to expand our target group and increase UGC."
188 people posted out of 200 people, who were gifted with the product. We realized advertising effectiveness in number of posts, reach, and engagement rate.
-What KPIs did you actually expect from Lemon Square?
Our goal was to increase UGC, thus our KPI was the number of posts.
We heard that Lemon Square's track record showed that about 80% of people would submit a post. 80% would be 160 posts, but we aimed for 180 posts, which was a little higher than that.
To achieve our goal, we made sure to describe the product features in the product introduction to attract the influencers who picked up the product.
The number of posts was 188, thus we got a good result.
-How about the effect on sales as a result?
We cannot judge the impact on sales since it is not a stand-alone measure of Lemon Square, but we believe it had a certain effect on the sense of challenge that without UGC, nothing would get done.
-How effective were the ads?
We believe it contributed to product awareness, seeing that 188 UGC were generated, reaching nearly 1.09 million users.
We have a feeling that the average engagement rate for influencer posts is around 2%, but Lemon Square had posts that exceeded 10% or 20%. We believe we were able to do this because of the passionate Lemon Square influencers.
High engagement means that we were able to contribute to increase the interest for the product. The reach and engagement rates are sufficient to make the ads effective.
Lemon Square's influencers are highly passionate and particular about their posts. We sometimes find the appeal of their own products again through their posts.
-What is the value of Lemon Square as a company that has conducted influencer projects?
I think the value of Lemon Square is that we have influencers with a high level of enthusiasm.
Posting is optional at Lemon Square, but as a result, we were able to implement it at a somewhat reasonable cost per UGC acquisition per person."
-What do you think the situation would have been like without Lemon Square?
I think we would have continued to have a structure that made it difficult to generate UGC or we may conduct same strategies with a little bit of extra cost.
Or, we might have had to implement similar measures at a slightly higher cost.
-What are your future plans for UGC measures?
We implemented measures on Instagram this time, but I believe it is important to build up UGC every month on various SNS.
Not only on Instagram, but also on Twitter and everywhere else, there is a continuous state of UGC for Chifuku.
For example, even if word of mouth is generated all at once during two weeks, if there are no posts for several months after that, people will feel that "Oh, this product has lost its popularity". Also there are posts on Instagram but none on Twitter, they will feel that "There was just a campaign," I think.
I think we need to promote all kinds of promotional measures in a broad and continuous way.
-Which companies would you recommend using Lemon Square?
The influencers that Chifure used this time were all very particular about their creative posts.
I think that daily necessities, cosmetics, and products for mothers would be a good match.
It is also a great way to rediscover how to use your products. It would also be interesting to use products that have a wide range of uses, and that leave room for the user to be creative.
Supported by
Chifure Holdings Co., Ltd./ CHIFURE CORPORATION
Advertising Division
Chifure (official)