“We put freshly-baked Greggs sausage rolls in the pockets of the mannequins in our Primark Newcastle store and posted it on Instagram. It just went viral almost immediately.”
A simple marketing stunt perhaps, but one which illustrates exactly why Primark director of marketing Wendy Duggan believes the power of social media for building brand equity cannot be underestimated.
No-one expected The Greggs partnership to become the cultural phenomenon it was, but the partnership was a huge boost to Primark’s cultural currency, with Greggs hoodies and sliders soon becoming a must-have.
“The collab itself was really simple and quite understated – no-one expected it to have the virality that it did,” Duggan told the audience at an Adweek panel on the power of memorability.
“It took everybody by surprise.”
Similarly, a Netflix Stranger Things partnership saw a Demogorgan crawling up the side of Primark’s Marble Arch store – another cost-effective in-house stunt making the most of the retailer’s key assets (its prime real estate) but driving massive interest across the media.
Duggan describes this as the “power of distinction”, explaining it is this which allows Primark to keep hitting that “cultural sweet spot” which has helped it build such strong brand equity .
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Primark’s power of distinction
With brand memorability more important than ever, Duggan went on to consider which is more valuable to a brand – getting instant attention or driving fame by building solid brand equity.
The two, she said, are not mutually exclusive, emphasising the role social media has in building equity, with a particular focus on building a strong community by driving relevance and credibility with the target audience.
“When I think of fame, Primark’s social has probably been the main way that we’ve driven that, with mainstream organic social. We have 8 million followers across all of our social channels, with very little paid spend in that space over the years.
“And we’ve been able to have that ability, within that community, to get things going viral on TikTok, seeing millions of views on our posts and then actually see the sales impact of that. The fame part of that is where we have been able to really build on that space.”
Duggan also revealed she is looking to the next stage of Primark’s journey.
She said the retailer has made the most of its social reach over the last couple of years, and “while it’s not quite fully exhausted yet, we’re now at the stage now where we’re asking – what’s next?”
Building brand trust and breaking America
“We’ve really started, on the equity side, to look at how to start building proper brand trust,” Duggan said, discussing how Primark is considering new strategies to extend its brand identity across an increasingly crowded media landscape.
It’s journey Primark has embarked upon with the team at VCCP, where it is working with the agency to build equity as it looks at the two extremes of brand health across its global portfolio.
“We’re looking at our journey, at what people think of the brand and where we have a perception issue that we need to shift. So we’ll be working more in the media space to build emotion and trust by using things like TV.
“And as we’re growing in the US there’s a massive growth journey there to drive awareness as well. We’re going to be using TV advertising to tell people who we are, what our proposition is and what we offer. So on one hand, yes we use that social space to drive fame, but as we look to build equity we’re looking at using different methods as well.”
With different strategies being tapped for different markets, Duggan’s final word rings true for all brands looking to build long-term brand trust.
“We’re sticking with the sausage rolls and the power of media – brands mustn’t underestimate or understate what they already have.”
