Lidl Fragrance Launch: How to Utilise Brand Perception to Your Advantage
As any DTC brand will know, being aware of how customers perceive your brand is a powerful marketing tool. Understanding brand perception allows your marketing to lean into this image, creating campaigns that play along with a nod and a wink. If you’re looking for some inspiration on how to do this, look no further than supermarket Lidl.
Lidl has developed a strong awareness of its own brand perception over the years, playing into its core brand ethos of ‘Big on quality, Lidl on price’ with a brilliant sense of humour. From viral bears to Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, Lidl knows exactly how people perceive its brand and understands how to lean into this with its marketing.
To help announce their new range of Suddenly and G.Bellini fragrances, Lidl enlisted the help of some familiar A-list names. Or did they? In a superb twist, the actual adverts featured Lidl employees who just so happened to share the names of top celebrities. These include Adele, Shakira and Robbie Williams. It’s a brilliant bit of advertising that plays directly into Lidl’s main message of ‘Big on quality, Lidl on price’, converting that into attention-grabbing names without the huge price tag.
It has been a hugely successful ad online. TikToks with the search term ‘viral Lidl perfume’ have generated 724.4 million viewers highlighting just how much people enjoy an end with such a strong sense of brand awareness!
So what three things can your DTC brand learn about brand perception from this Lidl campaign?
1) Get in on the ‘joke’
One of the reasons the Lidl fragrance campaign works so well is the brand knows exactly how far to ‘push the boat’ with the joke. Lidl’s marketing team understands that people love Lidl because of its high-quality products at cheap prices and this campaign leans into that with a cheeky sense of humour. Crucially though, it never pokes fun at Lidl itself. Instead, the joke is aimed at the fragrance companies who use celebrities in their campaigns.
2) Identify the recognisable parts of your brand
Notice anything interesting about the Lidl fragrance adverts? None of them feature Lidl’s iconic logo. What they do use though, is the Lidl employees themselves. The supermarket workers are the part of the brand consumers associate with the ‘Lidl experience’ and Lidl has made the most of this connection by featuring them in its latest campaign. It's worth noting that in this case, the adverts were placed on billboards near local Lidl shops meaning there is a high chance anyone seeing the images might actually recognise the staff members. Identify the parts of your own brand that are instantly recognisable to your customers and use them in your marketing. Make the most of how people already perceive your brand!
3) Don’t be afraid to be bold!
The most successful element of this campaign is that it is different and unique. The fact that it has been hugely popular on TikTok speaks volumes about how much consumers enjoy a different take on a familiar format. So experiment! Use how your customers perceive your brand to try new things with your marketing, you might just be surprised at the results!
