Why perfumier Creed developed a scented collectible straddling physical & digital worlds

The Idea

Creed faced intense competition during the Chinese New Year shopping season and wanted to create something special to excite existing customers and attract a new, young, beauty-conscious audience. The brand’s primary objectives were to generate social buzz, engage with the brand and bolster product sales.

The brand tapped Red Ant, a commerce-focused marketing agency, to help develop a creative concept that would enable Creed to achieve its objectives.

The Strategy

Among millennial and gen Z-aged consumers in China, the collectible toy market is growing, creating an opportunity for Creed to capitalize on this interest.

So Creed and Red Ant collaborated with Robbi, a collectible art object maker. Together, they introduced a branded, perfume-scented Robbi art toy that straddled the physical and virtual worlds. It featured a floral print designed by artist Laura Cheung and incorporated Creed’s popular Silver Mountain Water fragrance. An embedded chip accessible to collectors who scanned the figurine’s left foot would reveal the toy’s unique number, rendering it a highly-desirable NFT-like collectible.

The Robbi toys were made available for purchase in markets across China, France, the US, the UK and Canada via Creed’s Tmall store and Robbi’s Poizon and Red stores. Poizon unveiled the first cohort of limited-edition items to promote the launch, which helped to generate interest among gen Z audiences in particular. Video agency Carbon also helped to develop creative work for the campaign.

The collaboration gained significant traction, thanks in large part to endorsements and interest from key influencers, which helped to generate millions of impressions on social media. The Robbi toy was prominently displayed in retail stores in London and New York.

The Results

The collaboration between Creed and Robbi surpassed expectations. The campaign achieved over 117m impressions, with 890,000 engagements. Key opinion leaders and influencers contributed to the success, generating over 42m impressions through their posts.

Thanks to the hype, the limited-edition toys sold out quickly. To take advantage of the momentum, Creed released 12 additional pieces of content tied to the Robbi collaboration, which collectively won more than a million impressions.

What’s more, the campaign garnered significant media coverage in renowned publications, including Cosmopolitan, Vogue Business, WWD and others. The most significant achievement was the considerable spike in revenue for Creed compared to the previous year. Plus, the collaboration attracted ongoing interest in the reseller market, proving its continued value.

This campaign won at The Drum Awards for Marketing APAC 2023. Find out more about The Drum’s Global Awards program or head to our case studies hub to read more award-winning stories.