For Kohl’s Spring 2008 brand campaign, “Connect With Color”, the retailer wanted to develop a program that naturally wove its brand into the everyday conversation of its target customers, women between the ages of 25-54. The team decided a social network would provide the best platform to become part of the conversation online and offline.

Kohl’s and Universal McCann chose to partner with CafeMom, the leading social-networking/community site for Moms. The CafeMom team identified 20 top “member-influencers” based on site and social activity (group/forum participation, number of website friends, visit frequency) and gave each of them a $250 gift card. In exchange for the gift card, each mom was asked to “explore her personal color,” blog about her color driven shopping experience, and upload photos of the items purchased. To amplify program awareness, custom co-branded media featuring the influencer moms ran across CafeMom and drove to the Kohl’s Brand Profile page on CafeMom. This page aggregated all the Kohl’s related blog posts from the influencer moms and provided a platform for other moms to comment and participate in the conversation.

The program performed exceptionally well on standard web metrics as well as in a market research study. Hundreds of thousands of moms viewed the custom created influencer media, and tens of thousands of moms visited the CafeMom Kohl’s Brand Profile page to read about the influencer moms shopping experiences. The color focused shopping program and Kohl's in general were also featured in numerous mom member comments during the campaign. A market research study, comparing moms exposed to the program versus a control group, showed that this program moved the needle (at a 90% confidence level) on brand awareness, brand association, and purchase intent.

Client: Kohl's
Agency: Universal McCann
Budget: Undisclosed
Date of Campaign: March - May 2008