Pomellato and its Facebook Strategy Agate Elie & Donna McCullough

December 20, 2011

Pomellato is a luxury Italian jewelry brand with boutiques in Europe, Asia and the

United States. The brand operates three boutiques in the United States and has plans

to increase its market share. The marketing director performed a competitive

benchmarking analysis and has uncovered that the brand’s Facebok page has attracted

only 800 fans, and has little to no engagement.

He questions how this can be? We have celebrities such as Cameron Diaz and

Tilda Swinton endorsing our products? (See exhibit 1) We should have thousands of

fans on our Facebook site and provide and engaging and interactive experience that will

empower our fans to purchase our products. However, it is important to know that the

brand is not generating any online revenue, but only through retailers and Pomellato’s

boutiques. The marketing director met with the head of business development and

decided it was time to hire a social media specialist who could develop and implement a

robust strategy to heighten the awareness of the brand on Facebook.

The social media specialist realizes that the company established a Facebook

page but never maintained the page, nor developed a strategy to engage consumers. It

is like starting from scratch. However, he notices that each time they post on the wall,

fans like it and comment on it. He also knows that if the community is small it is because

Americans are not aware of the brand. So far there are two personalized tabs, one

featuring an advertising movie, and posts which are not written regularly (about once a

month). He peruses the page and sees no links to the brand website; there was no

integration with the brand’s website or any other digital platform. (See exhibit 2)

After talking to his manager he realized that the brand was missing out on the

opportunities that Facebook provides. No one at the company maintained the page

because they did not know how to create a Facebook page that would both control the

image of the brand in order to keep its prestige and that would still engage the fan

community. He was aware that the luxury industry had some reluctance to invest in

social media because of that same reason.

The specialist conducted research about how luxury brands optimize social

media. The research concluded that luxury brands manage their Facebook pages

differently than consumer brands. In general, luxury brands tend to attract fans but don’t

encourage much interaction. Luxury brands are often challenged by the need to identify

solutions to encourage engagement while maintaining the control of the brand.

Additional findings from his research indicated the following 1) brands on

Facebook need to participate in sharing, interaction, and compelling content 2) brands

should post product highlights, 3) brands should offer a fully integrated experience that

brings additional value.

The social media specialist identified two primary objectives: 1) Create a large

engaged community and, 2) maintain control of the prestigious brand image. How was

he going to meet his objectives with the following questions that needed answered.

How does a luxury company like Pomellato create an engaging relationship with fans on

Facebook without losing its prestige? Which type of content should we use? What

additional value would the Facebook page bring to fans? Now that social media is

entering the marketing sphere, should we think about the Luxury Industry in a different

way? What strategy should Pomellato adopt on Facebook? Until he could answer these

questions he did not feel comfortable revising the brand’s Facebook page.

Exhibit1: Advertising for Pomellato with famous actress Tilda Swinton

Exhibit 2: Pomellato website