When Taylor Swift entered her engagement era on Aug. 26, The Knot said “I do” to jumping on the viral pop culture moment. Within nine days of the global icon sharing news (and photos) of her engagement to Travis Kelce, the wedding platform had swiftly worked with its vendor partners to recreate the duo’s instantly iconic, floral-drenched proposal setting. And for one day on Sept. 4, couples, Swifties and anyone else interested in replicating the stars’ engagement shoot were invited into an “Enchanted Garden” inside New York’s Madison Square Park to have their portraits taken by a professional wedding photographer.
As far as the right brand jumping on the right viral moment, The Knot and the proposal recreation were a match made in heaven. But the brand already had another pop culture ace up its sleeve ahead of the live event: the Engagement Era Collection. The offering allows consumers to create wedding items inspired by Swift’s eras, like invitations, websites and registry wish lists—and the activation was the perfect place to launch it.
“The moment this [engagement] happened, we were on it, ready to go, and we knew that we were going to activate in a big way,” says Kiara Kempski, vp-consumer marketing at The Knot. “Strategically, it’s making sure that consumers think about us the moment they get engaged, making sure that we activate right at the time when something is notable… We wanted to activate, do it really quickly, and also make sure that we surround engagement, because that’s when we want couples to think about us. So it was kind of a no-brainer.”
For more insights on how The Knot successfully pounced on the photo shoot seen ’round the world, we asked Kempski for her pro tips.
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
Swift and Kelce’s engagement likely tempted brands of all stripes to add themselves to the conversation, but tapping into a viral moment only works if a brand can find a meaningful and relevant way to do so.
“Make it make sense. When it’s super obvious, when it absolutely makes sense for your brand, or the moment, don’t overthink it. Just go,” Kepmski says. “You just want to make sure that it’s the right moment to activate, and when it is, go and think about how fast you can do it, and pull in all the right people and partners.”
ACT SWIFTLY
There’s no time for second-guessing, get tangled up in corporate red tape or hesitation if a brand wants to capitalize on a trend while it’s still hot. And an “all-hands-on-deck” mentality is critical.
“The pace that we moved was really around: Let’s make sure that we capture lightning in a bottle in this moment,” Kempski says. “The difficulties anytime you’re going to do an activation [like this] is the speed at which you have to move, the decisions you have to call, the budgets you have to find pretty darn quickly to move. The benefit is when something is so obvious and right, everyone’s all hands on deck. And it was wonderful how excited, basically every single department at The Knot was around this. That made us move at great speed.”
BUILD PRE-EVENT HYPE
When Swift’s announcement went public, The Knot developed a digital engagement strategy that not only drummed up buzz for its forthcoming live event, but incorporated the brand into the cultural conversation. Teaming up with a few of its jewelry partners in New York, the company “dropped” 13 engagement rings across the city the week that the star got engaged, with each drop location coded to one of Swift’s lyrics.
PARTNER UP
Planning and executing an experience based on a pop culture moment is typically less daunting if partners are involved. For The Knot, recruiting wedding vendor partners to help facilitate the proposal activation not only helped the brand work quickly, but demonstrated to consumers how its marketplace works.
“Our whole product offering is to take those moments of inspiration, like a beautiful engagement or an amazing celebrity wedding, and make sure that regular consumers can activate it and do it for themselves,” says Kempski. “So the collection, recreating the garden, those are things that we do with all the vendors of our marketplace. So making sure that when you see that inspiration that we’re going to recreate, that we can also enable any consumer to take action.”
For the Enchanted Garden activation, The Knot enlisted florist partner The Floral Way to cover the footprint’s gazebo with flowers like garden roses, hydrangeas and anemones, while So Tender is Humanity took complimentary portraits of those who stopped by, and Dogwood Blossom Stationery and Invitation Studio provided signage.
“Think about which partners are equally motivated to activate around the same cultural moment, and then pull them in,” she says. “They’re going to want to move things, and you’re much stronger and quicker when you do it together. So phone your friends, find those partners that really drive that… We were able to quickly reach out to our photographers, reach out to our pros that are in our marketplace to build this. And they, too, jumped at the chance and wanted to activate.”
Of course, Swift and Kelce are likely to plan a number of wedding-themed events in the coming year, and The Knot says it’s just getting started on activating around America’s favorite love story.
“This is the first of many we’re going to be activating throughout the year,” Kempski says. “We have no idea where all the events leading from the engagement will go, but this is definitely going to be a tried-and-true opportunity for us that we’re going to do more of. [The Enchanted Garden] was more successful than we even thought, so that also gives us more confidence to keep taking opportunities like this.”
Photo credit: So Tender is Humanity
