The First Refurbished Twitter Account
Back Market
Issue 51 | June 2019
Agency
BETC
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Stephane Xiberras Creative Directors Benjamin Le Breton, Arnaud Assouline Art Director Vincent Lesnee Copywriter Matthieu Bouilhot
Production Team
Producer Jeremy Marsy Production House General Pop Director Jack Cole
Other Credits
Client Management Vianney Vaute
Date
April 2019
Background
Back Market was founded in France 2014 and quickly became the market leader for refurbished smart phones and home electronics. Their business was buying old products from people (principally smartphones), fixing them up and selling them on the Back Market website.
The concept chimed well with changing consumer habits and increasing concern for sustainability.
Idea
The challenge was to expand into the US market, where consumers were more resistant to the idea of refurbished products. The idea was to work with some of the world’s top influencers. Well, sort of.
Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner, 50 Cent, Ellen De Generes, Emma Watson, Kate Upton, and even the founder of Twitter all helped launch Back Market in North America without even knowing.
Back Market, experts in refurbishing phones, refurbished their tweets.
Finding old tweets where celebs praised now old phones, Back Market wrote carefully crafted replies and mailed the relevant celeb the (old) phone he/she had once wanted. This is how Ed Sheeran, 50 Cent, Katy Perry and many more became the brand’s unwitting ambassadors.
Kim Kardashian was reminded of her love for Blackberry (“for life!”) and Donald Trump’s 2013 dream of a bigger iPhone screen brought to life.
Results
311 old tweets from various global celebrities (actors, singers, novelists, sports stars and even the founder of Twitter himself) helped Back Market move from 100 customers per day to over 26,000 orders within the first 48 hours of the campaign launch. Over the following month, the website saw a 427% increase in sales.
Three of the celebs acknowledged being sent the smartphones of their (past) dreams.
Our Thoughts
About six months ago, Twitter issued a report on the power of influencers. “For marketers today, it’s not if you should be partnering with creators but more why and how to partner with them. What’s even more important for brands to understand is that there is a unique why and how for every platform, especially Twitter.” Back Market have certainly bought into the idea of influencer marketing and they have also understood how Twitter works to be able to come up with this cheeky and witty idea.