Nordstrom Tempts Millennials With Snapchat Presence

“Improving engagement” has become just another platitude in retailers’ back pockets as they figure out which channel of the increasingly fragmented online world they should focus on, but Nordstrom may have struck gold with a new Snapchat-centered production.

In an interview with Fortune, Nordstrom Director of Social Media Bryan Galipeau explained how the company’s latest pivot toward Snapchat promotional content has seen a boost in traffic for the retailer. The project revolved around a competition between five colleges — the University of South Carolina, the University of Oregon, the University of Arizona, Florida State University and UCLA — competing for votes from a general audience on which school could snap the most interesting picture of their college’s name. About 2,000 seniors were chosen to receive $100 vouchers from Nordstrom based on the contest’s results, with the funds ostensibly being used to buy new shoes for post-graduation job searches.

How did Nordstrom do? The final video was seen 6.7 million times and led to a 60 percent increase in the brand’s followers on Snapchat.

“It’s a great storytelling platform,” Galipeau told Fortune. “We wanted to be really engaging and enable them to participate in our brand. One of our key principles in social media is how to be authentic and engage with our customers in a way they use the platform naturally.”

Meeting customers where they are — and giving them content in the way that they consume it — makes sense for Nordstrom, a retailer that saw about 22 percent of its 2015 sales come from eCommerce operations. As crucial as strengthening the connection between digital promotions and digital sales may be, Galipeau acknowledged that its college-focused Snapchat content was more about the engagement it inspired than the sales it drove.

“It’s a fun way to interact and not directly tied to selling shoes,” Galipeau said. “It’s really about creating a unique experience associated with Nordstrom.”