DIFF Eyewear: Influencer Remarketing to VIP Customers, 30M Reach & 200k Purchases

The Brand

DIFF was founded to take advantage of a huge disruption opportunity: 85% of sunglasses brands and retailers — the Ray Bans and Sunglass Huts of the world — are owned by a markup-happy conglomerate called Luxottica.

Unlike other major brands and true to its name, DIFF does things DIFFerently: all you pay for is the eyewear. Plus, for every purchase, DIFF donates a pair of reading glasses to those in need, which means the difference between poverty and prosperity for many people.

Common Thread Collective caught the DIFF vision and set out to get millions of people to do the same.

The Challenge

DIFF came to CTC with strong ecommerce influencer marketing in place. The struggle was using those relationships to grow its customer base at scale.

In an increasingly jaded social-media world, the pay-for-post model for influencer marketing no longer gets the kind of direct sales results it once did. Worse, organic reach on Facebook and Instagram has rapidly declined over the last two years.

Our assignment: influencer-led content and influencer-driven remarketing to MVP customers.

The Strategy

Through creative testing, the CTC team found that the raw quality of the iPhone video felt much more real than a higher-quality post – yielding massive results at the prospecting level with influencer fanbases.

Once this winning insight was unveiled, to grow DIFF’s customer base through paid social, the strategy then became:

First, source ads featuring self-shot testimonials from celebrities with avid fan bases, including the likes of Khloe Kardashian, Demi Lovato, Kendall Jenner, and many others.