Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is a Canadian retailer that sells outdoor recreation gear and clothing; MEC is an actual co-op as well, with over 5 million members. Established in 1971, they have been a long-standing household name throughout Canada, and the brand is focused on fostering a strong community of outdoor enthusiasts of all types.
Sports + Fitness
- Digital Media + Ambassador Program Specialist - Brand Engagement Manager
The Challenge
- MEC already had an established group of brand ambassadors and influencers, however, they were finding it time-consuming to manage all the partnerships manually. So they needed to find a platform where they could streamline their end-to-end campaign management.
- They were running a wide range of campaigns from brand awareness through organic posting, contests, and whitelisted ads. Their campaigns were often centered around local sporting and fitness events, so they needed a way to easily find influencers located in the regions of the events (also with an audience in those locations).
- All in all, MEC needed a platform that would provide support for its diversity of campaigns, an end-to-end campaign management tool, and a marketplace to source specific influencers.
The Solution
MEC found Insense as their all-in-one platform to obtain custom content, manage influencer campaigns, and amplify influencer posts thus streamlining the whole process. Insense has helped MEC meet a wide range of sponsored campaign objectives, including holiday gifting, promoting new product lines, and boosting general brand awareness.
Since the brand already had a core group of brand ambassadors and influencers that it worked with, MEC was able to better organize its efforts by onboarding its existing influencers into Insense — allowing the brand to take advantage of Insense as a project management platform, and to also scale whitelisted ads on Instagram.
MEC also leveraged Insense’s existing database of influencers to find influencers in specific regions, create region-specific content, and then running ads specifically in that region. For example, the brand hosts the MEC Race Series in several areas of Canada, including Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. The company was able to find influencers in each of the regions where it was hosting race events through the Insense platform, and then collaborate with its chosen influencers to promote the races.