Sydney creative digital and social media agency Circul8 have woven a very cosy campaign for the Woolmark Company with ‘Wrapped in Merino’. Following on from 2011’s successful Find Fashion by Feeling campaign, ‘Wrapped in Merino’ runs across Facebook and a microsite and asks fans of fine Aussie wool to help them set a world record for the ‘World’s Largest Social Scarf’.

Knitting a social scarf

The campaign’s functionality is simple and creative. Using a Facebook app, fans are invited to upload a photo of themselves (either from their existing Facebook photos or from scratch), and then design and customise their own section of a huge scarf. Once they’ve chosen from a nifty selection of patterns, styles and colours, they can manipulate and superimpose their scarf over their photo to give the appearance of being worn. That photo can then be added to a huge scrollable chain of people linked together by a giant scarf made from all the personalised sections.

“The ‘Wrapped in Merino’ social scarf is inspired by the connections that social media enables between people and their interests,” says Alice Mansell, Account Manager at Circul8. “[It’s] part of a wider social media strategy Circul8 developed for The Woolmark Company. The core proposition is ‘Feeling connected by wool’.”

The app’s built in functionality also allows fans to share their photo with friends and family via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest and gives entrants the chance to win a weekly prize pack consisting of a Net-A-Porter voucher and a Merino wool scarf. Once the campaign receives 3000 entries, it will be submitted to RecordSetter for an official world record attempt at the ‘World’s Largest Social Scarf’.

Who needs old media?

While many social media executions form just one part of wider, traditional media campaigns, Circul8 has focused their efforts for ‘Wrapped in Merino’ purely online. Driven by Facebook (but also supported by Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube), it forgoes all traditional media channels and puts faith people’s desire to connect over things they like.

“Social media has the reach we need to connect with a global audience and empower wool lovers to pass our message on,” says Mansell. “The campaign has been received with great excitement by the media and bloggers. We’ve had a fantastic uptake by wool lovers with them getting involved and creating their section of the scarf to help set a new world record.”

Just one phase in a global social strategy

Circul8’s major aim with ‘Wrapped in Merino’ is to increase awareness of wool amongst a new generation of consumers.  “A huge number of these consumers are using social media,” says Mansell. “The We Love Wool community has just celebrated reaching 100,000 fans and it’s the perfect platform to launch a global campaign and encourage a deeper engagement with the fibre.”

With those global aims in mind, this execution is envisaged as just one step in a larger social media strategy for The Woolmark Company. “Many more will follow on various social media platforms in the near future,” says Mansell. “Watch this space.”  

Outcomes

At the time of writing, the ‘social scarf’ itself was more than two thirds of the way towards the world-record submission target and growing steadily. Most significantly, however, the wider ‘We Love Wool’ Facebook community now tops more than a whopping 114,000 likes. To put that in perspective, that’s only a few thousand less than Virgin Australia and almost twice that of Jim Beam Australia.

With success for ‘Wrapped in Merino’ being measured in terms of how much social engagement and reach it can generate for The Woolmark Company, there’s little doubt the campaign’s impact has been prodigious.