The Mane Event: Launching Sylvanian Families Pony’s Stylish Hair Salon
It’s not everyday we get to spend hours in an exclusive salon and call it work, but for the launch of Sylvanian Families’ Pony’s Stylish Hair Salon, we did just that.
Team Playtime is experienced at launches and events that not only excite and entertain attendees, but also really help to bring toys to life and give far-reaching impact beyond the event itself.
This launch, part of our work with Epoch Making Toys to bring well-loved heritage brand, Sylvanian Families, to an audience of potential new fans, saw us smash client expectations when it came to celebrity attendance (hitting 140% over the KPI), social content, and media coverage of the event (200% above the KPI).
In a nutshell
“The event was a huge success, resulting in exposure across social media and national press, providing a great way to kick-off the Christmas sales period”
How
The Pony’s Stylish Hair Salon is the hero playset in Sylvanian Families’ “Style and Play” collection – a range that introduced an exciting new play pattern into the Sylvanian Families world in 2022.
The launch required careful curation of venue, props and talent so we could entertain and look after our guests, whilst also capturing visually-impactful photography from the event – enabling us to show off the range in the best possible way through social content and media coverage.
Taking centre stage at our launch event was Sally, the long-haired pony girl, who’s the star of the new playset. We organised a life-sized, costume character Sally to make an appearance, exciting our littlest guests while being the perfect photo partner for everyone attending – putting the brand front and centre of content in a playful and appropriate way.
The centrally-located and stunning Linnean Salon was our venue of choice. Providing the perfect backdrop for photography as well as a splendid and welcoming environment for entertaining our guests, children and grown-ups were also treated to salon and style treatments with Sally proudly watching on.
A Pony’s Stylish Hair Salon set was placed on each salon station so that our youngest guests could immerse themselves in play whilst being pampered and treated to delicious snacks alongside their grown-ups.
The Playtime team carefully designed product packs to support content photography too – opting for giant bows to contain the toys and reflect the look and feel of the collection whilst showing them off in photography, instead of bags that would hide the toys/branding in any content capture.
Celebrities and VIPs, who had been invited for their influence as well as their love of the Sylvanian Families brand, supported the event through various pieces of content on their social channels. We landed branded coverage in national media with event photography – with the Mail Online even including the brand name in its headline.
The combined media and social coverage not only drove reach and awareness of the new collection at the start of the Christmas sales period, it also helped to harness an affection for Sylvanian Families – evidenced through the positive sentiment shared in comments across Instagram.
Results
We far-exceeded client expectations on results:
· 140% increase on launch event celebrity attendance KPI
· Threefold increase on branded Instagram content pieces KPI
· 200% increase on national media coverage KPI
· Delivered the activation and results within tight timeframe