ASOS

The Objective

ASOS is a British online fashion retailer that carries over 850 brands and ships worldwide. It’s also well-known for not only being at the forefront of what’s trending but also for setting trends in the first place. When it aimed to raise awareness and engagement with digital natives, it turned to its marketing technology agency Byte (a TikTok Global Effect Partner), custom music agency KARM (TikTok Global Sound Partner) and TikTok to tap into its fiercely creative community, where trends, innovation and content is king.

The Solution

ASOS, with the help of its agency Byte and sound partner KARM, decided to leverage one of TikTok’s most wide-reaching branded solutions, a Branded Hashtag Challenge Plus. The concept that Byte devised – #AySauceChallenge – was brilliantly kooky and creative. It invited the community to “channel their ASOS vibe” and show off their three best outfits with a series of outfit changes over the course of three weeks in the U.K. and U.S., set to bespoke music and an interactive augmented reality Branded Effect.

The Branded Hashtag Challenge Plus also included a spot on TikTok’s trending hashtags list and a bundle of additional ads—TopView, One Day Max and Brand Premium In-Feed Ads—all of which turbocharged exposure for the campaign and pushed users to the central challenge page, where all UGC entries were housed. ASOS also worked with 28 popular U.K. and U.S. Creators, such as @abbyrartistry, @estare, @elmo and @lorengray, to kick-off the challenge and provide inspiration for users to follow while also building credibility of ASOS’ brand presence on the platform. Using Creators allowed ASOS to tap into an enormous combined following, paving the way for engagement on a massive scale.

The Results

Globally, the campaign recorded over 1.2 billion video views in just six days, with 488,000 videos created and 167,000 users taking part, all of which exceeded expectations. On top of that, the creative achieved an engagement rate of 15.79%, well above benchmarks. ASOS commissioned a Brand Lift Study for the campaign, and the results were also very impressive. The campaign achieved a 25% increase in aided brand awareness and a 10% increase in brand association with being “trendy.” Ad recall also saw a 50% increase.