http://khitschicago.cbslocal.com/2017/04/18/for-those-of-you-asking-what-the-hecks-a-unicorn-frappe/
The essence of business is transient and evolutionary, they operate under the common law of “adapt or die;” the inability to be flexible and change according to circumstance, especially shifts in social trends, will result in inevitable stagnation of the obsolete. Arshdeep Gill’s article “Memes and Marketing” takes note of Gucci’s adaptation to cater to a larger market of young consumers through taking advantage of a modern social trend that is memes.
The article highlights the brilliance of the company in diverging from the traditional style of marketing and making its advertisements worthwhile,”unique and creative”. Although it was a risk for a high-end brand like Gucci to be deploying this type of meme campaign as it contradicts its value proposition, it was successful in exposing the brand to a new market of otherwise nonchalant young consumers and millennials. The author comments on how usage of a separate medium to communicate the memes to the target audience would have benefited Gucci by minimizing backlash. All of this, to me, is the paradigm of modern marketing: Strategically integrating trends in society in marketing campaigns to appeal to potential markets without disrupting the business’ value proposition and its current consumer base.
Take Starbucks for example, particularly their “limited frappe” campaigns that include the unicorn frappe in April and more recently the ongoing one which features the zombie frappuccino. The two, respectively, was a culmination of insight into social trends and also the knowledge of upcoming events in which the marketing campaign would be most relevant and thus gain the maximum exposure. The marketing campaign resulted in “the acquisition of new customers,” where multiple Starbucks locations reported seeing customers they had never seen before, but “will most likely be recurring customers in the future” due to the positive experience.
It is evident that having insight into current social trends was essential for Starbucks’ majestic pulling off of their frappuccino campaigns. The theme of their products and the period in which they sold were all configured deliberately, capitalizing on social trends and insight into the targeted market’s behavior. The most important aspect that made the unicorn frappe as proliferated on social media as it was, was the fact that it was made to be so visually aesthetic, and with the influx of unicorn frappe posts on Instagram and the like, gave, even more, an incentive for others to “join the hype,” especially the younger consumers.
Gucci and Starbucks are not in any position to “die” anytime soon, however, they are prime examples of how businesses can capitalize on insight into social trends, and how going big and bold is necessary to gain a lead, make headlines, as well as acquire potential customer segments.
Word Count: 449