How brands can lean into customer-centric advertising to build audience connections
1 November 2021
Building connections is a continuous goal for advertisers. These connections span beyond the relationship of brands and customers. They also connect business challenges to solutions, and audiences to content and products they need or love.
During Amazon Ads’ 2021 unBoxed conference, which was held virtually from 26 October to 27 October, leaders from Amazon Ads and beyond discussed marketing trends and insights. One of the major themes Vice President of Sales for Amazon Ads, Alan Moss, touched on during his keynote was the need for brands to consider creating more customer-centric advertising as a way to help build deeper connections with audiences.
These connections can provide utility for customers, and add to their daily lives, Moss said in his keynote.
“To me, the idea of connection – especially over the past 18 months while working from home – has meant really listening and re-examining what matters,” Moss said. He detailed how spending time at home reacquainted him with his family, his neighbours and his community.
“Likewise, advertisers don't have to go far to re-connect with their customers in meaningful ways,” Moss said. “The answers are in your backyard, once you take a step back, reflect on your goals and leverage powerful tools that are already part of your repertoire.”
Embracing online retail
An example of how one brand is reconnecting with audiences using a customer-centric approach is the L’Oréal Group. As the world's largest cosmetics company concentrating on hair care and colour, skin care, sun protection, makeup and perfume, L’Oréal Group has embraced online retail. Last year, online sales of cosmetics and beauty products increased global online sales for L’Oréal by more than 62%.1
Engaging audiences through Amazon Live and Streaming TV ads
Take L’Oréal Professionel as an example, Moss explained. Working hand in hand with Amazon Ads, the brand used an omni-channel approach to launch Steampod on Amazon, a steam-powered flat iron, hair straightener and professional styler. To make a big splash, they worked with Amazon Ads to build a Prime Day campaign designed to demonstrate the product in engaging ways to build awareness. L’Oréal concentrated on a Prime Day package that included Amazon Live and a Streaming TV ads Prime Day campaign, leveraging the Video Creative Builder.
“Video Creative Builder was new to L’Oréal Professionel and how they displayed video on their store, Moss said. “Using the ‘speed to shelf’ engagement templates in Video Creative Builder for the first time, L’Oréal Professionel enhanced their creative and incorporated more information on video overlays to showcase Steampod’s features, and a strong call to action.”
Measuring success in streaming campaigns
The results were impressive. The videos had a completion rate of 87% compared to the existing benchmark of 60% set in previous campaigns.2
And during Prime Day, L’Oréal Professionel made another big breakthrough with this campaign with Amazon Live. The brand launched five live streams with re-streams featured throughout.3 During these live streams and re-streams, L’Oréal Professionel was to achieve more reach in real-time, as viewers were excited about “live” programming and the chance to chat with hosts and with each other. In the end, the Amazon Live portion of the campaign reached nearly six million unique viewers, Moss explained.4
“The kind of incredible reach that L’Oreal created with their Prime Day campaign is possible for brands of all sizes,” Moss said. “And once you’ve done that, the next step is to measure the impact and ensure your brand’s message stays relevant.”
Understanding what’s resonating with a brand’s audience
Moss also discussed the different ways advertisers could measure performance. For instance, in another campaign, the L’Oréal Luxe Division wanted to experiment with Streaming TV to elevate Armani fragrances.
L’Oréal Luxe used insights from a Kantar Millward Brown study conducted by Amazon Ads that evaluated the effectiveness of their Streaming TV campaign for Aqua Di Gio Armani Fragrance on Brand Metric outcomes. The study showed that their 30-second creative was more effective than the 15-second spot, lifting both Brand and Ad Awareness. The campaign exceeded the Kantar benchmarks for brand awareness and purchase by 400%, Moss explained.5
L’Oréal Paris is a great example of how one of the world’s leading cosmetics brands with an over 100-year history can leverage campaign signals in order to connect with audiences in new and effective ways.
Leveraging campaign signals in order to reach customers
“L’Oréal has been one of the most active users of the Amazon Marketing Cloud, using it to look at their campaign signals over a wide range of brands to discover more about their customers’ needs and reach incremental audiences,” Moss said. “They brought their campaign information together with their Amazon Ads insights and the results have been excellent.”
Leveraging campaign signals in order to reach customers
“L’Oréal has been one of the most active users of the Amazon Marketing Cloud, using it to look at their campaign signals over a wide range of brands to discover more about their customers’ needs and reach incremental audiences,” Moss said. “They brought their campaign information together with their Amazon Ads insights and the results have been excellent.”
With help from Amazon Ads solutions, L’Oréal Paris experienced a 14% lift in traffic and an 8% increase in the purchase rate by analysing Amazon first-party insights and their own insights using AMC.6
Brands across the L’Oréal Group’s portfolio demonstrate how brands can connect with audiences in meaningful ways by experimenting with new and innovative ways.
Customer-centricity is key to any brand’s success, Moss said.
“At Amazon Ads, we want to support your brand from discovery to purchase and to deploy technology to help you achieve your goals. As at every step of the customer journey with any brand, we start with the customer and work backwards,” he said.
Like Moss reconnecting with his neighbourhood, the L’Oréal Group looked at what audiences were already responding to and what was resonating with them. By working with Amazon Ads, they were able to re-connect with existing customers and discover new audience connections too.
“The past 18 months have forced us all to re-examine what matters. To change the way we think and do things. It has been a time of great innovation, and we’re only just getting started,” Moss said.
1–6 Amazon internal data, 2021