Lidl launches influencer campaign

Lidl has launched a large-scale influencer campaign and grouped together all influencer activities under the hashtag #LidlStudio. Instead of a brief event, Lidl is betting on long-term collaboration, with 20 influencers supporting campaigns, action weeks and special products. Two projects will complement the ongoing activities. Well-known faces such as Riccardo Simonetti, Valentina Pahde, Shanti Joan Tan, Patrizia Palme and 16 other influencers will be featured on Lidl’s Instagram and other social media accounts. The social media stars were first introduced on Instagram with the hashtag #spottedatlidl.

“#LidlStudio initially includes 20 influencers from the areas of family, lifestyle, food and fashion, who will join us over the coming months in the marketing activities,” said Jan Bock, director of purchasing and marketing at Lidl Germany.

“As part of the marketing mix, we will aim to inspire a young, online-savvy target group about the Lidl brand and the Lidl online shop through the influencers.” A mixed group of people with several degrees of fame, areas of interest and followers of 25,000 to 1.1 million was chosen for the initiative.

The line-up was first unveiled on Instagram via “Spotted @ Lidl”. The influencers shared photos of themselves being “spotted” at various Lidl branches in a variety of shopping situations on their social media accounts. In addition to traditional shopping events such as “German Wine Week”, there will be also two key projects launching at the beginning of September. Ten influencers will put together their own product boxes, to be distributed in limited editions exclusively on Lidl’s online store; and another highlight of the #LidlStudio campaign will be the launch of an Esmara influencer clothing collection for Lidl’s own clothing brand. Four female influencers will create their own designs, and the collection will launch in the spring of 2019 exclusively on the Lidl online shop.

“It’s important to us to measure the performance [of the campaign]: we want to understand whether and how #LidlStudio can help us achieve more sales, which we can track in the online shop. Ultimately, this will help us decide whether influencer marketing can be part of our marketing mix in the long term,” said Bock.

As part of the Schwarz group of companies based in Neckarsulm, the Lidl is one of the leading companies in the grocery supermarket sector in Germany and Europe. Lidl is currently present in 30 countries and operates more than 10,500 branches in 28 countries worldwide. In Germany, the company employs around 79,000 people in approximately 3,200 branches. Since 2008, the Lidl online shop offers non-food products across a variety of categories, including wines and spirits as well as travel and other services. The offering on the Lidl online shop is constantly expanding and currently includes about 30,000 items. In 2017, Lidl generated sales of €74.6 billion. Lidl Deutschland accounted for €21.4 billion.