Uplifting Instagram Marketing: Soffe Apparel's PaulAnderson on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

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Paul Anderson is director of marketing at Soffe Apparel, an apparel company started in 1949 as adistributor to the military. Over the years, the company expanded into clothing and became knownfor its signature athletic shorts. The shorts, made for men, became popular among cheerleaders,who would fold down the band so they'd fit properly.

In the fall of 2014, Soffe conducted market research into the young, female market for athleticapparel that yielded some interesting insights. Soffe learned that women felt more motivated towork out as part of a group, and that that sense of belonging was key to success when pursuing theirfitness goals.

I invited Paul to Marketing Smarts to discuss how Soffe used those insights to completely rebrandthe company to reach the underserved demographic of young, female athletes seeking inspirationand motivation from one another.

Soffe's "Strength in Us" campaign is a complete turnaround from the brand's previous marketingmessage. The company's willingness to act on sound audience data has turned its social channelsinto a destination of choice for its target audience.

Here are just a few highlights from our conversation:

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Don't be afraid to rebrand if you're not reaching your core audience (03:23): "The Soffe brand hasbeen going through a massive revamp over the past 18 months.... We noticed especially on thewomen's side that there was this massive disconnect with our core consumers. So, one of the thingswe wanted to do...was to go out and actually listen to that consumer. That really prompted [us toconduct] research."

Invest in research so you can truly understand your audience (04:00): "One of the big things we didwas to bring on a new agency of record...and they've got some pretty interesting proprietary tools at

their disposal [that] allowed us to set the stage for the research that we did. Being able to, at scale,understand and listen on social and through search, we were able to get an idea of brandsentiment.... That then prompted us to dig into the specifics around our core consumer.... Youngwomen were connecting through exercise and these group-based activities.... 80% of young womensaid they were more motivated to exercise with friends or a team. 92% said they were more powerfulas a group... It wasn't that they weren't competitive--they were individually competitive--they justfelt that there was something more."

Look for opportunities to connect with audiences your competition is ignoring (05:35): "As we lookedat the activewear market in general, we saw a big opportunity there to tell our story, a story thathad been part of Soffe for a long time: our roots in the military, our roots in cheerleading, and thenhow that evolved to how...young women approach active now.... We're a smaller 'fighter brand' as Ilike to say, but as you look at the big guys that are out there, it's all a lot of the same--advertises andtalks about 'lone individuals' with big campaign slogans glorifying the single athlete. We thoughtthat this was an interesting thing that we'd want to hang our hat on, and talk to our core consumerand young women in a more realistic and authentic way."

Once you've reviewed the data, use it to better serve your target audience (07:41): "We did someearly segmentation work and really looked at the different groups around dance culture, aroundgymnastics culture, Zumba and cardio barre--all these sort of new exercise movements that reallyare based around groups, and they all sort of draft off of dance in a lot of ways. We're reallyconcentrating on messaging around those activity bases where we're building product andmerchandizing around those things. It started with segmentation."

Go where your audience is (like Instagram) and give them content that inspires (08:53): "What wewanted to do as we launched for spring 2015 was to put a break between the brand's old and newcontent. We wanted to be pretty stark about it. To launch the 'Strength is in Us' campaign, wereleased a 24-word manifesto in 24 separate posts, and each post featured compelling statisticsaround our study, and it really just captivated--the statistics around teamwork, around the power ofcollective strength. It was interesting to see our consumer who was used to our 'old' content, andthen seeing the reaction from our new 'coming out' party.... It's just about being a content source forour consumer and really to inspire and motivate young women around this idea of 'the power of we'and 'the strength is in us....' We were on Instagram before, but we're being more strategic and morechannel specific about it. It is our most engaged channel."

Experiment, but not without a strategy; establish a baseline to measure against (12:18): "We can seeLikes, comments; and as our audience grows, those things are all important. One of the things...wehad seen through our initial research around the brand was digging down and understanding brandsentiment...and we're going to be paying attention, obviously, to that. We wanted to be a place tohost the conversation around our positioning, sort of a content source of inspiration andmotivation.... We want to be a brand publishing content that engages our consumer. It's one thingthat we just didn't do when we lost touch with them.... We've established a brand-tracker base thatwe're going to use to measure yourself against quarterly, so that'll be really interesting to see wherethe needle moves there.... We have seen our followers increase at a rate that was higher than whatwe were previously doing, so that's a good sign."

To learn more, visit Soffe.com or follow Soffe on Twitter: @Soffe. And be sure to check out itsInstagram feed: @soffegirl.

Paul and I talked about much more, so be sure to listen to the entire show, which you can do above,or download the mp3 and listen at your convenience. Of course, you can also subscribe to theMarketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode!

This episode brought to you by CallidusCloud.

Special thanks to production sponsor Candidio, an efficient, affordable video production platformallowing marketers and communicators to collaborate and curate video content, with help from ateam of professional, on-demand video editors for the finishing touches. Check them out!

Show opener music credit: Noam Weinstein.

This marketing podcast was created and published by MarketingProfs.

Kerry O'Shea Gorgone is instructional design manager, enterprise training, at MarketingProfs. She'salso a speaker, writer, attorney, and educator. She hosts and produces the weekly Marketing Smartspodcast. To contact Kerry about being a guest on Marketing Smarts, send her an email, or you canfind her on Twitter (@KerryGorgone), Google+, and her personal blog.

http://www.marketingprofs.com/podcasts/2015/27321/brand-management-soffe-instagram-Marketing-Smarts