Dissecting The Marketing Behind Higround's Latest Capsule Drop ⛰️
And what other brands can learn from it...
Yo,
Hope your week is off to a fantastic start. I’m writing this piece from 15,000 feet in the air on the way to NYC.
Keeping this one short, sweet, and applicable for you.
If you prefer to skim, here’s today at a glance:
Higround x 100 Thieves Influencer marketing strategy…
How Higround incentivized buyers to be at their computers waiting for the drop to go live…
The potent marketing force that Higround tapped into to make the purchase a no brainer to customers…
Now let’s chat about in more in depth, and make sure you walk away from this piece with some strategies to apply in your own marketing.
1 - INFLUENCER MARKETING
Look, this one isn’t rocket science.
Higround was acquired by 100 Thieves, so they have access to the high-power roster of influencers that 100T has under contract.
It only makes sense to work with those influencers to push the drop to their combined millions of followers.
Not only that, the association with 100T alone is enough to drum up hype (and I’d assume that’s one of the reasons why this partnership happened in the first place).
An important principle to understand here:
The audience of the brand and the audience of the influencer are in alignment.
The majority of 100T’s audience is made of gamers.
Higround’s target audience is… you guessed it, gamers.
Higround’s “limited drop” strategy is also in alignment with what 100T does. Their audience is conditioned to participate in these drops, and something like this doesn’t seem foreign to them.
This doesn’t just apply in gaming.
No matter the niche, you’ll want to leverage influencers that your target audience actively follows and trusts.
2 - INCENTIVIZING FAST PURCHASES
Most marketers give stuff away for free.
The best marketers give the right stuff away for free.
And I’m a fan of the unique giveaway strategy Higround used to get buyers to camp out at their PC and watch the timer tick down till launch.
How’d they do it?
The first 25 orders of the capsule also got a limited-edition custom keycap, free of charge. The keycaps weren’t available for purchase anywhere else.
Here’s why it worked:
1 - it’s perceived as free (duh)
2 - it’s relevant (you gotta give away things your audience wants)
3 - it’s legitimately scarce (you’re not going to find it anywhere else)
Another layer to this that I find fascinating is that there was probably wayyy more than 25 people lined up to try and snag a key cap.
So, by giving away 25 plastic keycaps that barely cost anything to make…
Higround *probably* drove significantly more than 25 sales in the first few seconds of the launch.
It’s like a drop within a drop.
That’s some 4D chess s***.
Where do brands go wrong here?
Well, they give away items that they’re audience could not give two s***s about.
Here’s how I would approach this as a brand:
Think about what your audience is constantly asking you for, but you haven’t made happen yet.
Can you do it at a low cost, or at most a cost that you can justify by the AOV of the entire purchase?
If so, you’ve probably got a winner.
For Higround, it was an exclusive key cap. What will it be for your brand?
3 - USING NOSTALGIA TO SOLVE A PAINFUL PROBLEM
The human race is collectively stressed out right now.
And a large section of Higround’s demographic is making the transition into adulthood during this uncomfortable time.
There’s a deep desire to go back to simpler times, back to childhood.
The “Epic of Higround” capsule explicitly offered to solve that problem.
Don’t believe me?
Just look at their marketing copy.
Seriously, whoever wrote this copy and developed this positioning for the drop needs a raise.
This angle makes the drop unique from others that are only fueled off of hype and status signaling, in my opinion.
Why?
In marketing, the best products solve a painful problem.
This drop follows that rule. It offers some semblance of a return to those simpler times that gamers constantly refer back to.
Add high-quality design and a built in distribution network via 100 Thieves and you’ve got a recipe for a killer drop.
Now, there’s something I feel we should discuss.
Every time I write a case study on anything having to do with 100 Thieves, it’s always tempting as a reader to resort to the “100 Thieves could sell JHB’s bath water” argument.
Okay. There’s truth to that.
But — that doesn’t make this idea any less useful for you.
How can your brand solve a problem that exists for its audience? Really, if it doesn’t do that… why does it exist?
Just some food for thought.
THE RESULT
The drop sold out.
Come one, were we really expecting anything less?
This is promising for Higround as the drop wasn’t explicitly linked to 100 Thieves (like their first one), outside of the influencer posts. I’m excited to see how they can expand on the drop model in new, creative ways.
TLDR
Higround worked with influencers relevant to the target audience to drive awareness and hype for the drop…
They also incentivized fast purchases by giving away a custom key cap to the first 25 orders…
The drop tapped into nostalgia and a desire for gamers to return to simpler times…
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And if you wanna stick around, my next newsletter is dropping on Thursday…
Talk to you then,
Tommy