Cry Babies Intro to Social Media
Challenge: Although incredibly popular in Europe, the doll brand, Cry Babies wasn’t known in the North American market.
Opportunity: Create a memorable digital brand identity.
Insight: The dolls were conceptualized to be playful growing companions.
During the spring of 2018, I began working as a content creator/designer alongside a team of social media specialists and digital marketers in IMC’s North American market expansion.
Cry Babies held top-ranking in multiple doll categories across Europe.
The plan to help them succeed in the saturated North American market included a digital and social media marketing strategy where I was in charge of creating the digital storyline that “humanized” the dolls as fun and cute play companions.
As a company we had two challenges; the first one: gaining IMC’s trust as they were just entering the social media world. The second, create a unique identity that resonated with the parents/guardians enough for them to show our content to their kids.
Our insights showed that mothers would be compelled to follow a toy brand that leaned into talking about values and children’s imagination.
As a response, I created a product photography style guide that elevated the brand look, showed front and center the values of playfulness + friendship, and aligned with the tone of voice.
Within a few months of launch, Cry Babies generated millions of media impressions across multiple platforms, it formed a highly engaged digital community (that keeps growing), sold out on multiple stores across the United States and it was nominated for the 2019 Toy of the Year Awards (TOTY Awards) in the doll category.
As the brand kept growing, I used the insights that the analytic provided to replicate the aesthetic of the posts with high engagement. It was very important to listen and analyze what the Cry Babies’ community valued to create images that were current to the demands and trends of the time.
On the technical side, the aesthetic always focused on having bright lighting that served to soften the natural characteristics of plastic. The dynamic compositions were achieved by following the rule of thirds and playing with contrasting dimensions between doll and props which resulted in balancing proportions in the environment.
To this day Cry Babies has a loyal fan community and got a second nomination in the 2020 TOTY Awards.
I am proud to have been part of the team that set the foundations for the brand’s ongoing growth ✨.