We were tasked with furthering Lynx’s cool brand image amongst young men in the United Kingdom. Normally, the most straight-forward strategy would be to wow them using paid media, or big, bold, ubiquitous outdoor ads. But due to the extensive lockdown this past year, the streets were emptier than ever. This made OOH advertising seem like an ineffective use of time and budget. How could we still get the word out and connect with our guys? Well, if the people could not come to our ads, perhaps our ads could come to them.

Lynx created the first ever indoor campaign, in which the brand paid people to display one of their branded ads in their homes and then share them with the world through Instagram. After all, people were sharing and seeing stuck-at-home selfies on the platform every day. The brand set out to use those interiors as media and appear in the backgrounds of Instagram users’ social media content with branded Lynx items consumers could order and own for free.

This way, the brand did not only reach these participants, but also their followers. In short: young Britons became paid influencers for the brand—for the first time, anyone could be a “Lynx-fluencer”.

The brand launched a digital Marketplace where consumers could request their Lynx ad for free. All communication had the Lynx voice, bold and bright designs and straight-to-the-point copy with calls to action like “stop posting selfies for free!”. Each available ad also had item-specific copy, such as “get a poster that pays rent” and “count cash, not sheep”. The website guided consumers through each step using clickbait-style calls to action such as “click here to make money” and “sign up before it’s too late!”.

To communicate the campaign, Lynx shared short tutorial-style posts and stories on Instagram together with collaborating influencer Calfreezy (young UK lifestyle vlogger, 1.5M followers) to reach our target audience of UK Gen Z/Millennials who are active on the social platform. From then on, the campaign sold itself through word of mouth. The following morning, all of the Indoor Ads were sold out.

To make sure consumers could easily get one of Lynx’s Indoor Ads, the brand launched a Marketplace where consumers could request one of four branded Lynx products: a shower panel sticker; a framed poster; a fridge magnet; or a pillowcase. Both Lynx and collaborating influencer Calfreezy announced the campaign on Instagram and linked to the Lynx Marketplace’s site. Here, consumers could quickly sign up and order their favourite ad for free. Upon receival, consumers snapped a selfie with their installed ad and after uploading them to Instagram with the hashtag #LynxIndoorAds were paid their respective amounts, with items priced up to 50 pounds per post. Regardless of their follower count, consumers became influencers for the brand, sharing their content featuring Lynx ads with friends, family and fans, causing an exponential effect in campaign reach even after the campaign completely sold out after the first day. (This campaign was UK only)

The UK only geo-targeted campaign got hundreds of Britons to put our ads up in their houses, The campaign reached +4.000.000 users and generated €1.300.000 in media. The Indoor Ads all sold out within a day with new sign-ups every 1.8 seconds, +3 minutes on average spent on the website and a 47% conversion rate. The public had a 97% positive sentiment towards Lynx’s campaign.

Most importantly, the campaign created a lasting connection between Lynx and its customers by not selling them their products but instead paying them to sell the products on their behalf. It shifted the consumer-brand relationship to being collaborative, and in doing so, modernised and democratised the meaning of social media monetisation.