Michael Hill Jeweller's missed marketing opportunity at their Bondi
Anaita critiques Michael Hill Jeweller's new store launch, where an ice cream stand drew a long line but people took the freebie and left without engaging with the jewelry or entering the store. She lays out several ideas they could have used instead, like styled human mannequins, an app that ties ice cream flavors to jewelry recommendations, and jumping on a viral song, to actually convert foot traffic into brand engagement and sales.
The lessons
A long line at your launch means nothing if it doesn't lead to a taggable moment or a sale.
Use in-line waiting time to showcase your product up close, like styled mannequins people can photograph and touch.
Tie any giveaway (like ice cream) directly back to your product with an app or redemption mechanic that drives people into store.
Jump on viral trends and songs to make your launch content more shareable.
Design every launch touchpoint to end in either a sale or a piece of user-generated content.
Questions people ask
Why didn't Michael Hill Jeweller's ice cream stand work as a launch tactic?
People lined up for the free ice cream, got it, and left without entering the store or engaging with the jewelry, so there was no taggable moment or sales conversion. Anaita argues the goal of just looking busy or getting people photographed with branded ice cream is meaningless without a real product interaction or purchase incentive.
What could Michael Hill have done differently at their store launch?
They could have used human mannequins draped in jewelry for people to photograph and touch, built an app that matches ice cream flavor choices to jewelry recommendations with a redeemable discount in store, or jumped on a viral trending song with a flash dance or cover performance. Each idea is meant to turn line traffic into either sales or shareable content.
Transcript
Michael Hill Jeweller just missed a massive opportunity with its new store launch in Bondi Westfield. I was walking around Bondi Westfield and I saw this line outside of Michael Hill and I thought, what a cool thing for a very old-school retailer to have a line like this. They'd actually set up an ice cream stand outside their store to lure more people into this new opening. But when I looked more closely at it, people were lining up for the ice cream, they got the ice cream, and then they left.
They didn't even enter the store. But then my question is, what is the point of having the ice cream stand? Is it so that people are walking around Bondi Westfield with Michael Hill Jewelry branded ice cream, or is it that they are just making it look like it's a busy store opening? Because in my opinion, both of those goals are meaningless goals because they're there to get free ice cream and there's no real taggable moment.
There's no buying from Michael Hill Jewelry. Here are some things that I think they could have done to make the whole experience so much better. First of all, they needed to leverage that line. They needed to have human mannequins doing different poses with jewelry draped all over them.
Michael Hill bag charms and necklaces and all the new things that they're displaying need to be draped all over these models, and people could take photos and touch them and feel them and see how good the jewelry is. The second thing they needed to do was to play with the concept of jewelry and ice cream and doing really cool little things like this. Another thing that they could have done is to have an app. So while people are standing in line, they use the app to choose the flavor of ice cream that they want.
Then the app gives them recommendations based on their flavor choice of what bag charms and jewelry and all the new stuff that they're launching in store. And then when they go pick up the ice cream based on the flavor they chose, they actually get a discount code or a freebie or something cool where they have to go into store with their ice and redeem whatever the app gave them. Another really simple thing they could have done is build their own tray with ice cream and jewels from Michael Hill. Also, they could have jumped on this song, which is viral at the moment.
They could have had a flash dance, or they could have had a cover artist singing it with the jewelry on. There's just so much.
