Final fall, direct-to-consumer shaving model Harry’s grew its in-house capabilities, including an in-house studio with a full-time in-house photographer to its employees. The corporate did in order it has been spending extra time on its natural social content material, creating content material particularly designed for the channel — i.e. one thing designed for TikTok or Instagram that might match the type of content material that’s posted there – relatively than posting one thing that’s one-size-fits-all.
“It makes us extra nimble, it saves on value and brings larger high quality [to our content as well as allows us] to iterate extra in-house,” stated Marina Cashdan, head of artistic and comms at Harry’s. “We don’t need to simply drop a product picture on each touchstone that’s the identical however telegraph the content material for every channel and viewers.”
The in-house workforce consists of 13 creatives together with mission managers, operations, producer, manufacturing leads, an in-house photographer, copywriters, designers, artwork administrators, in addition to 5 folks dealing with communications for the corporate. Harry’s, based in 2012, has had an in-house artistic workforce since its inception. Whereas the workforce handles all the pieces from bodily packaging to natural social media to partnerships to digital advertising content material the corporate will faucet company companions and freelancers as wanted.
Bolstering the in-house workforce’s capabilities with an in-house studio is a “sea change” for the model that can permit it to be extra nimble, defined Cashdan, including that there’s been packaging updates and varied different improvements recently. The studio now permits them to “iterate on artwork course,” stated Cashdan, in addition to “tailor [content] extra for our dot com, social, we don’t need to simply drop a product picture in each touchstone that’s the identical however telegraph for every channel, viewers.”
That tailor-made content material has helped Harry’s in its effort, during the last year-and-a-half, to shift its social presence and lean into extra natural social content material that feels native to the platform that it's on. “The fact is that so many customers now will go to Instagram first,” stated Cashdan of the corporate’s must lean into natural content material throughout varied social platforms now. “Totally different from the web site, it brings out the persona, values of the model.”
It’s unclear how a lot Harry’s has invested in its in-house company or its content material studio as the corporate declined to share these figures. The corporate additionally declined to share how a lot it's spending on natural content material or its media funds. That stated, Cashdan did share that Harry’s is “investing way more in natural social but additionally investing in paid channels” and that it isn’t “transferring [dollars] from paid to natural.”
Throughout the first two quarters of 2022, Harry’s invested $30.6 million in promoting placements, per Kantar’s knowledge, which additionally discovered that Harry’s invested $46.9 million all through 2021. These figures exclude spending on social media channels as Kantar doesn’t observe social spending.
As for technique, Harry’s in-house workforce maintains a pre-planned social content material calendar to have interaction its viewers however doesn’t dictate a set cadence of posts every week. The workforce focuses content material round main model initiatives, launches, cultural moments in addition to lighthearted content material that displays the model’s persona.
“For instance, most not too long ago we leveraged our Instagram to supply a behind-the-scenes sneak peek of our Delight marketing campaign a couple of days earlier than it formally debuted,” stated Cashdan in an e-mail. “We proceed to have interaction with our neighborhood through posts and feedback as they work together with that content material.”
Constructing out a studio in-house and specializing in natural social content material is sensible to Eunice Shin, associate and world head of direct to shopper at Prophet, a development technique consulting agency, as thriving DTC manufacturers concentrate on “content material, neighborhood and commerce.”
“Immediately’s DTC world has shifted to a bit extra of an on-demand strategy,” stated Shin. “Manufacturers must have creatives, writers, photographers, all filling the content material engine. They have to be giving clients a motive to come back again with new imagery, content material, and many others. It may possibly’t really feel static and the identical on a regular basis. It has to really feel contemporary and new on an ongoing foundation. Bringing that functionality in-house makes it simpler for these driving efficiency advertising, have a constant voice and model story.”
That stated, Shin cautioned that the strategy solely works if the in-house workforce is able to telling the proper model story for that model and that model’s neighborhood. “In case your workforce doesn’t do the proper job, not successfully telling a narrative [that can be a problem],” stated Shin. “But when there’s a workforce that understands north star then it’s nice.”
