New kids on the block Giftcloud, a distributor of online and mobile gift cards, were a brand new player in an unknown sector. They needed to create a brand with meaning as well as confront a much wider issue: the perception of the gift cards themselves.
Consumers see gift cards as a total downgrade on real gifts for real friends. An impersonal, old school, lacklustre gift, given when you simply don’t have time. But you still want to show you care.
So, how do you change the category perception for these time poor naysayers? How do we get the grandkids purchasing gift cards, not just Grandmas? And most of all, how do we make this process engaging?
After a bit of head scratching, we found our answer lay in Giftcloud’s online and mobile platform offering – a prime way to target those millennials glued to their mobiles for social media and SMS.
An opportunity to turn those obligatory “HB DY” or “Happy Xmas!!” texts and Facebook posts into something more meaningful. An opportunity to reframe gift cards as a quick and easy way to upgrade those messages…
And ta da! The new Giftcloud: When Words Aren’t Enough platform was born. Now you can gift using social media in a personalised manner.
Knowing the negative connotations associated with gift cards, we wiped ‘gift card’ from our vocabulary entirely, with the brand always referring to the end benefit the user would receive, changing it from straight monetary value to a named gift (from £3 gift card at Starbucks to the gift of Frappucino).
We provided all internal and external stakeholders with revamped brand guidelines, including the brand’s new position, tone of voice and style dos and don’ts.
“Giftcloud loved this so much, they rolled out the brand platform in record time across their website and app.”
