Client | Confidential 1

H&M and Alexander Wang Measuring Campaign Success

Client | Confidential 2

Introduction

On April 13, 2014 at Coachella music festival, Alexander Wang

(beloved American designer and creative director of Balenciaga)

announced his collaboration with H&M. The release date was

set for November 6, 2014. Over the following months, strategic

awareness was built up by both H&M and Wang. Media

placements in international fashion magazines with editorials

on the collaboration promoted the campaign as well. But it was

social media that played a critical role at generating awareness

and excitement.

This case study analyzes the effectiveness of H&M’s campaign

and collaboration with Alexander Wang over social media. We

will also measure the impact this had on the conversation

around H&M’s sentiment and shifts in consumer’s intent to

purchase. For the purpose of this study, we looked at the

conversation around H&M over a 9 month period (from April 1st

2014 until December 31st 2014).

Client | Confidential 3

Measuring Campaign Reach H&M x Alexander Wang (April 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014)

By comparing the overall conversation around H&M (excluding the collaboration-related conversation)

with the collaboration-related conversation only, we can see that the campaign accounted for 12% of

H&M’s total conversation over the 9 months analyzed.

Client | Confidential 4

Measuring Campaign Reach H&M x Alexander Wang (April 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014)

November 6, 2014: the day

arrived. shoppers lined up at the stores the day prior.

April 13, 2014: collaboration is announced.

July 7, 2014: first look at product from the

collaboration is released.

September 2014: fashion magazines run editorials on the collaboration. Rihanna is spotted wearing some items.

September 25, 2014: ad

campaign images are released.

October 2014: Wang uploads a

video to Instagram. More fashion

magazines create awareness.

The campaign’s conversation totaled 171,345 posts over the months analyzed. On the graph below, we can

see how the conversation’s volume changed over time as well as the causes of peaks in conversation.

Client | Confidential 5

Measuring Reception to Campaign H&M x Alexander Wang (April 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014)

We analyzed the conversation around the campaign and built categories to understand consumer opinion and

sentiment to interpret the responses. We found the conversation to be mostly positive (66%) with general

positive conversation accounting for 46%. Excitement around the collaboration accounted for 15% and

“Positive: Love the Collection” for 5%. The negative conversation accounted for 27%, out of which 12% was

general negative. 8% of the negative conversation came from consumers who were upset about how quickly the collection sold out and H&M’s website crashing. Finally, 7% of the negative conversation came from

consumers that did not like the design of the clothes.

Client | Confidential 6

Measuring Reception to Campaign H&M x Alexander Wang (April 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014)

In this page, we compiled a few examples of Tweets within the general positive category (46%):

Client | Confidential 7

Measuring Intent to Purchase H&M x Alexander Wang (April 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014)

Announcement week.

Intent to purchase: 30%

of the total conversation

Release week. Intent to

purchase: 50% of the total

conversation

In order to accurately measure the impact of the campaign on consumer intent to purchase, we analyzed the

overall conversation around H&M. We found that on the week the collaboration was announced (April 13 – 19,

2014), intent to purchase accounted for 30% of the total brand conversation. More surprisingly, over the week

the collaboration was released (November 2 – 8, 2014) intent to purchase accounted for half of the entire

conversation (50%) compared to an average of 14% over the 9 months analyzed.

Client | Confidential 8

We also found general positive sentiment towards H&M to account for 25% of the conversation over the week

the collaboration was announced (April 13 – 19, 2014) and 34% over the week the collaboration was released

(November 2 – 8, 2014) compared to an average of 10% over the 9 months analyzed.

Measuring Campaign Impact H&M x Alexander Wang (April 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014)

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Audience Insights

We looked at the demographic differences between consumers involved in the general H&M conversation

(excluding the collaboration-related conversation) and consumers involved in the conversation around the

collaboration. We found that the collaboration attracted an older audience. Users who are 17 years old or

below, account for 39% of H&M’s general conversation but only 29% of the collaboration-related conversation.

Furthermore, the percentage of users between 18-24 sees a 2% increase and the percentage of those who are between 25-34 sees a 12% increase in the collaboration-related conversation. In terms of gender, the

percentage of males involved with the collaboration-related conversation (39%) is 4% higher than the general

H&M conversation (35%).

Client | Confidential 10

Audience Insights

Finally, we looked at the differences in the interests

between consumers involved in the general H&M

conversation (excluding the collaboration-related

conversation) and consumers involved in the

conversation around the collaboration using our

Affinities feature.

We found that the collaboration aligned with a more

fashion-oriented audience. Those engaged with the

collaboration are 5 times more interested in Vogue, 4

times more interested in Kanye West, 3 times more

interested in Haute Couture, and 2 times more

interested in fashion and Rihanna than those

engaged with H&M’s general conversation.

In contrast, those engaged with H&M’s general

conversation are 2 times more interested in

YouTube, Liam Payne, High School, Disney,

homework, and video games.

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Conclusion

This case study demonstrates how social media analytics can help answer different strategic business

questions.

Using customizable categories, we were able to understand the drivers of sentiment around H&M’s

campaign and collaboration as well as the overall impact it had on H&M as a brand. We were also able to

measure intent to purchase, which allows H&M to understand the relationship between conversation volume on social media and sales numbers to prove ROI. In addition to measuring campaign success,

social media analytics can also influence all other parts of the creative marketing process: from campaign

planning to campaign execution and reporting.

For brands like H&M and Alexander Wang the customer insights are of the utmost importance. Our

analysis revealed that the campaign and collaboration attracted an older and more fashion-oriented

customer base for H&M. Audience analysis can help companies understand what marketing initiatives are

resonating with each target market, or to understand new demographic sectors to build into. All this

knowledge helps shape marketing strategies and campaigns that will achieve business goals.

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Crimson Hexagon is a leading provider of social media analysis software. Powered by patented technology and an in-house data library of more than 500 billion posts, Crimson Hexagon’s ForSight™ platform helps hundreds of brands and agencies answer critical business questions through the insights derived from social data. Clients include leading global organizations such as General Mills, Starbucks, Paramount Pictures, Microsoft, and Twitter, and leading agencies such as Translation, Edelman, and We Are Social.

Find us on Twitter @crimsonhexagon.

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