The Keepsake Ornament collection is a curated collection of ornaments for the holidays, and each holiday season has a certain collection of memories. We all have our own ideas of what the perfect holiday looks like: where everything goes off blissfully without a hitch. But that’s a fantasy. The reality is it’s the imperfect moments, unexpected surprises and unique personalities that create the stories families cherish year after year. Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments created an emotional connection in a different way in this campaign, embracing these perfectly imperfect memories as the key to the creative: using the tagline “Keepsake it together.” In each execution, a Keepsake Ornament is the emblem of a memorable moment captured or created during the holidays.

The execution of the approach was threefold. All elements of the campaign were housed on keepsakeit.com, the microsite, which served as the scrapbook of Hallmark-original, influencer generated, and user generated, content. The site went live on November 01, 2015, alongside the release of six laugh-out-loud web videos we created (each featuring a perfectly imperfect holiday moment) with a Keepsake Ornament that embodied that memory. Second, we deepened our reach with original influencer content, which lived on the microsite as well as the influencers’ platforms. Users were encouraged to upload their own content featuring their #keepsakeit holiday moments. These were pulled from instagram, and other social media platforms. We also developed snap chat filters coordinated with public Christmas tree lightings around the country. Finally, we used native and paid advertising to reach consumers with a strong call to action, analyzing data in real time to optimize our reach.

The web videos received over 161.8 million views with 5.6x the benchmark CTR to the keepsakeit.com site. Consumers lauded Hallmark for its humor, inclusivity of multicultural families and honest perspective in its videos. Consumer facing media recognized the bold move for the brand, highlighting humor as an emotional tool rather than an exclusively sentimental moment. Despite a major shift in strategy the brand saw a 3.7% increase in sales, and 18.6% increase in revenue for the featured ornaments. We strengthened Hallmark Keepsake Ornament’s relationship with Moms and multi-cultural audiences, and ensured that, going forward, consumers see Hallmark as an accessible, modern, and top of mind brand for the holidays.