Creative tests in Yandex Surveys helped Avon and RedMe evaluate the relevance of a social initiative

Here's how the brand exceeded the planned targets for click-throughs to the project's landing page by 20% and for social media engagement by 50%.

The client

Avon is a manufacturer of skin care products, perfumes, and decorative cosmetics. The brand believes in the power of innovation and makes beauty accessible for all.

Avon's target audience is women over the age of 18 who take care of themselves, strive to be independent, and buy high-quality cosmetic products.

The agency

RedMe is a socially oriented marketing agency that develops and implements projects of measurable social significance. It's part of the RCG group of companies.

Period

November 25 – December 10, 2021.

Task

According to the World Health Organization, the number of domestic violence cases has grown manyfold since the start of the pandemic.

Domestic violence doesn't only refer to physical abuse. Violence is often psychological, and it may be difficult to recognize quickly.

In order to fulfill a social mission — to tell women about the signs of psychological abuse and teach them to recognize it early on and to react appropriately — the brand decided to launch a media campaign. The task was to help women understand whether their relationships are abusive.

Solution

In collaboration with the RedMe agency and professional psychologists, Avon developed the “ABC of Abuse” landing page containing useful information, recommendations, and tests. A video series titled “Translation from the abuser's language”, talking about covert ways of abuse, was published on Avon's website and social media.

Abuse in relationships still remains a taboo subject. For greater publicity, Avon used posts on social media, on public pages, and in blogs as their main promotion channels. It was more comfortable for women to speak out and read others' stories on social media.

Avon is a brand with well-developed communication channels, but it also strives to improve its creatives and look for new points of contact with the audience, including by way of social initiatives. Testing an ad even after its release helps to improve its effectiveness. That's why after the launch, all the videos were checked on the Yandex Surveys platform to further evaluate the importance and relevance of their subject. Every video was shown to three hundred Yandex users.

Client feedback

“ We achieved all the KPIs that we set for site click-throughs and received a positive response from the audience, company employees, and the professional community. It's important to work on social initiatives with psychologists so as not to harm anyone. The brand itself can't provide the required high-quality expertise — focus groups are necessary to make sure that the audience perceives the call to action correctly. ”

Anastasia Lovchenovskaya, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Avon.

“ This was the first time we worked with Yandex Surveys on analyzing the brand's creatives. We set out with an ambitious task to test the videos and the social component of our advertising material. It wasn't clear whether we'd manage to convey our message to the audience. But everything worked out well: thanks to Yandex Surveys' extended functionality, we were able to ask clarifying questions. We were pleasantly surprised that respondents of different ages understood and appreciated our campaign. ”

Leonid Andreyev, Strategy Director at RCG.

Results

In the first wave of the test, we launched four videos in three categories of the Avon brand: perfumes, care products, and decorative cosmetics.

Judging by the feedback, our most successful video was “ABC of Abuse: H” about humiliation in a relationship. Later, we used it again in another category, and it showed even better results.

Advice to advertisers

“ You can use Yandex Surveys to test commercials, but we were mainly interested in the social effect of our videos. The overall rating of the video wasn't as important to us as the audience's insights from the creative itself. ”

Anastasia Lovchenovskaya, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Avon.

In the Avon survey, two additional questions were asked about each creative. The answers confirmed the test results: the respondents identified the main idea of the videos and their social significance correctly, as intended by Avon. Despite the large influx of advertising before the winter holidays, the company was able to exceed its plan for impressions by 20% and for ER by 50%.

Testing the creatives helped Avon further assess the importance and relevance of their subject. About 40% of respondents said that they reviewed their relationships after watching the video. This suggests that many women have either experienced domestic violence or believe that they have experienced it.

The survey results have clearly shown that social initiatives like Avon's are necessary and important. The obtained data will help Avon and RedMe improve the quality and value of their future social campaigns in the eyes of the brand's audience.