How to stand out from competitors with content and storytelling? The content strategy created together with Vapa helped Reima identify a change in the market and seek a new direction for content marketing.

When children’s clothing brand Reima withdrew from the Russian market in 2021, the brand found a new position in many countries. Although the majority of sales for this brand familiar to Finns comes from outside Finland, its recognition is still very small in many markets.

“We had to define a new direction for our brand storytelling and respond to our challenger brand position through marketing and content. To address this need, we began building a content strategy,” says Noora Tavares, Reima’s Global Content Manager.

From product talk to relatable storytelling

As an industry, children’s outdoor clothing is a homogeneous market; different brands talk in very similar ways about both the technical features of the clothes and the sustainability of materials. Reima wanted to differentiate itself from competitors with content and storytelling that is relatable to parents managing family life with children around the world.

“We have noticed that a professionally photographed child in a spotless overall in a beautiful location no longer works in social media the way we hoped. We recognized that parents want more familiar experiences and everyday life they can relate to,” Tavares explains.“

In content, there was a desire to focus less on the product. Because Reima operates in numerous different markets, diversity and relatability must be sought from users’ family life and ways of spending time outdoors around the world.

“We had been focused on explaining why our products are so good, when consumers had been constantly looking for the product to be shown in the right context,” Tavares adds.

Content strategy provides guidelines for marketing

The content strategy implemented by Vapa defined clear priorities for both channels and content, as well as how different topics appear in different channels. The strategy work also considered extensively, for example, how to make content more authentic, how to highlight Reima’s main messages in them, what is the role of each channel in paid and organic content, and whether there is a need for new channels.

“We had many messages at different levels, and different markets are addressed from different angles. First, we had to determine what are the most important topics in different channels. In addition, we chose our most important consumer channels for the strategy, which are Instagram and Facebook, and left an option to open TikTok,” Tavares explains.

The content strategy work helped Reima prioritize its main messages and guided the company in building a consistent and impactful brand image. Working with Vapa’s experts also helped structure the brand’s own thinking and challenge current practices.

“In the midst of the strategy work, we realized that we need to dig up the topics internally. We already do a lot and the topics are ready, so we had to take time to go through them and think about how different topics relate to each other and if there are cross-cutting themes. Based on that, we started building a content house where content has its own places and hierarchy,” Tavares explains.

Vapa’s experts were praised for how well they understood Reima’s challenges. In joint workshops, Vapa helped Reima build a content strategy that not only meets the brand’s own goals but also serves consumers in the way they want.

“Vapa was able to take Reima’s work to a new level by helping understand how social media has changed in recent years, what expectations consumers have in different channels, how different features of social media work, and what kind of content should be brought into the marketing funnel.”

A bold leap from brand imagery to user-generated content

One of the decisions strengthened by the content strategy work was to shift the emphasis from product-centered brand imagery toward user-generated content (UGC), increase the amount of video content, and adopt TikTok as a new channel. Ahead lies a bold leap to free content production from the brand to users.

“Until now, about 90 percent of all content has been brand-produced brand imagery, and for UGC, it’s been picking individual content from social media channels. Now the intention is to reverse these figures within a couple of years,” Tavares explains.

User-generated content encourages product purchase without being product-centric.

“In the future, the intention is to bring user-generated content to every stage of the marketing funnel, not just for inspiration. For example, we want to create conversion advertising using user-generated content.”

Reima team’s key insights from content strategy work with Vapa

• Change is inevitable. “The world, ways of consuming, expectations, and the use of channels and media are constantly in transition. As a brand, we need to be ready to accept this and boldly jump on the bandwagon.”
• Combination of our own expertise and Vapa’s knowledge. “Our team already had a lot of understanding, skills, and knowledge about things. Vapa’s expert team helped validate that we have been thinking about the right things and taking steps in the right direction. We received a strategy that supports our goals.”

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You can find Reima products at: https://www.reima.com/fi-FI