Kate Spade New York Matches Messaging to Mindset with LinkedIn Campaign

Founded more than 25 years ago, Kate Spade New York is a global life and style brand, with handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, gifts, home décor and more. The company has more than 4,500 employees.

Challenge

The Kate Spade New York brand continues to bring thoughtfully designed and innovative products to the market, and recently released a new generation of its popular scallop smartwatch earlier this year, for which KSNY wanted to build awareness with very specific audiences.

Solution

KSNY had never run ad campaigns on LinkedIn previously, but the company’s marketing team identified the platform as a strong fit for reaching an audience of busy, successful professionals — the ideal customer for the scallop smartwatch. "It’s important to us that the message we are sharing with consumers fits on the platform we are using," says Krista Neuhaus, Senior Director of Global Digital Marketing at KSNY. "We want it to feel smart, contextual, and have it capture their interest in a natural way."

Results

With a primary goal of driving traffic, the campaign ran across four different platforms, and LinkedIn delivered the highest click-through rate of any. One ad, featuring a picture of actress Busy Philipps wearing the smartwatch alongside copy customized for LinkedIn’s audience, reached more than 143,000 unique members while healthily exceeding LinkedIn’s internal benchmarks with a 2.44% engagement rate and 1.78% CTR. Ultimately, the ad delivered 2x above LinkedIn benchmarks for engagement and click-through rates.

Not just for B2B

There’s a common misperception in the marketing world that LinkedIn is only a space for B2B organizations, but Kate Spade New York savvily understood that it’s also a great place to reach and engage with the right B2C audiences. The platform’s segmentation capabilities enabled KSNY to zero in on its ideal target customer, for whom the product and content would be most likely to resonate. 

"LinkedIn gave us an opportunity to speak to a specific group of professional women that know and love our brand, but now we are able to target them directly with a product that will fit seamlessly into their existing lifestyles," Neuhaus explains.

It’s about mindset

Not only did LinkedIn help Kate Spade New York reach the right type of professional, but more importantly, helped engage these members in the right context. "Being able to show consumers a product that can directly benefit their busy lives, while not having to sacrifice style was the goal," says Neuhaus. "It really allowed us to match a product with a mindset."

Onward and upward

With this successful test run in the books, Kate Spade New York plans to continue investing in LinkedIn as a platform to reach their customers and build community. For other marketers who are considering LinkedIn campaigns, Neuhaus recommends being mindful of not only of who is in your segmented target audience, but what their contextual mindset is like as they peruse the platform. KSNY found traction by hitting this sweet spot.

As a brand we are always looking for new places where our customer is spending time. LinkedIn gave us an opportunity to reach a targeted audience of professional women. — Krista Neuhaus, Senior Director of Global Digital Marketing, Kate Spade New York

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