The Objective
Celebrating Unique Cultures & Holidays
The iconic dolls, accessories, and stories from American Girl® embody a spirit of adventure, imagination, and childhood. American Girl’s 2021 Cultural Celebrations campaign aimed to take all the uniqueness that makes the world special by celebrating a variety of religious and cultural holiday celebrations with its Truly Me Doll.
To promote its Cultural Celebrations collection and drive traffic to its website, American Girl leveraged influencers to generate repurposable holiday content using the hashtags #AGCulturalCelebrations and #MyAmericanGirl. The end goal was to encourage purchasing decisions among consumers.
The Solution
Connecting with Authentic, Diverse Influencers
Determining the right influencer partners
Before American Girl and Later began sourcing creators for the 2021 Cultural Celebrations holiday campaign, they needed to determine their target audience. American Girl wanted to reach mothers of young girls who celebrated Diwali (November 4, 2021), Hanukkah (November 28-December 6, 2021), Christmas (December 25, 2021), or Kwanzaa (December 26, 2021-January 1, 2022) with their families.
American Girl’s influencer-generated content (IGC) didn’t come without some considerations. For example, there needed to be a quick turnaround of content creation ahead of Diwali, the biggest and most important Indian holiday of the year. There also needed to be strict sourcing parameters and an emphasis on cultural sensitivity. AG made it a priority to partner with influencers who had an organic, genuine connection to their featured holidays.
The influencer sourcing process
It was imperative to promote an authentic connection by partnering with creators whose families observed various religious and cultural celebrations. Because of the importance of the sourcing process, the Later team spent substantial time up-front searching for a wide range of creators. In addition, due to the holidays taking place across several months, Later approached the campaign sourcing in scheduled waves.
During the sourcing process, American Girl and Later asked about the creators’ families and their connection to the various holidays, including their traditions; this gave the teams a preview of how each would speak to each holiday and develop their content. They also worked with influencers to ensure that they were appropriately representing each culture. Because American Girl wanted to be sure that its creator partners had an aesthetic that matched its brand style and vision – in addition to possessing a strong following and engagement rate – this dialogue was especially vital to creator selection.
The activation
To fulfill American Girl’s vision for on-brand, reusable content, the final creator cohort was asked to produce evergreen, relevant content that could be repurposed for future holiday seasons. This strategy allowed the American Girl team to plan for future holidays while extending the content shelf life over many activations on American Girl’s organic channels.
The Results
An award-winning campaign
At the end of the 2021 campaign, American Girl partnered with 20 influencers to produce 123 pieces of content for the #AGCulturalCelebrations campaign on Instagram. These influencers helped American Girl achieve over 360,000 impressions, more than 27,000 engagements, and an engagement rate of 7.5%.
Later’s influencer marketing platform’s American Girl® case study won the 2023 MUSE Creative Award, earning Silver in the Branded Content: Influencer Marketing category.
20
Influencers
123
Pieces of Content
360k
Impressions
27k
Engagements
7.5%
Engagement Rate