Cultivating Cultural Currency: The Martin Agency and Miracle-Gro's Social Media Renaissance
The ever-evolving landscape of social media has caused our attention spans to flicker like fireflies. In 2024, standing out and mesmerising audiences - like the glow of a firefly - requires more than just visibility. It demands cultural resonance.
This challenge was embraced head-on by The Martin Agency when it took the reins as creative agency of record for Miracle-Gro at the close of 2023. What ensued was not just a transformation of a brand's social strategy, but a redefinition of how gardening intersects with modern lifestyles. Under the visionary guidance of Saakait Mathur, brand director at The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, and Nadezhda Camperlengo, creative director, social at The Martin Agency, the partnership blossomed into a vibrant tapestry of creativity and community building.
Since assuming control of Miracle-Gro's digital narrative, The Martin Agency has orchestrated a meteoric rise, amplifying impressions by over 209%, engagements by 253%, and boosting follower counts by an impressive 15 thousand. However, these statistics merely scratch the surface of a campaign that goes beyond metrics, delving deep into the zeitgeist of contemporary subcultures - from cottage-core to goth - and redefining the garden as a sanctuary for diverse expressions. Through meticulous segmentation and a deep understanding of online behaviours, the team has woven narratives that resonate authentically, making Miracle-Gro not just a product, but a portal into immersive and inclusive worlds.
Speaking with Nadezhda and Saakait, LBB delves into their collaborative journey, uncovering how strategic insights and creative synergy have cultivated a new era of relevance and resonance in social media marketing.
LBB> Congrats on the campaign! Saakait, can you describe the journey of Miracle-Gro’s social strategy transformation since partnering with The Martin Agency? What were the initial goals and how have they evolved over time?
Saakait> As the category leader of garden care products, we sought to conquer new territory alongside Martin: the social landscape. Our initial goals were rooted in growing our following and earning cultural cachet - we wanted to be the number one garden care brand in the social space.
Partnering with Martin has been incredible. The team has pushed us to think bigger about our social media aspiration from just being the number one gardening brand to becoming the next big lifestyle influencer. Since our partnership, we’ve seen a transformation in the visuals, tone, and trendiness of our content which has led to rapid follower growth in our key social channels.
LBB> The campaign has seen impressive increases in impressions, engagements, and follower count. What key strategies or tactics have been most instrumental in achieving these results?
Nadezhda> Our campaign combined creator collaboration with content that reflected the real-life behaviours of a subculture within our target audience, driving significant engagement on Instagram and TikTok. In partnership with Action Bronson, we developed content that resonated with our subculture, sparking genuine conversations and positive sentiment. This strategy led to 1.2 million impressions and a follower increase of 12.57%, with an engagement rate of 6.36%. Beyond hard metrics, our efforts strengthened our presence within that community, showcasing the impact of culturally aligned content.
LBB> You’ve mentioned focusing on finding intersections in the target audience’s interests and subverting stereotypes around gardening. How did you identify these intersections and how are they reflected in your content strategy?
Saakait> We believe that anyone can be a gardener, despite experience levels or their luck in inheriting a green thumb. We look at our target audience holistically, but realise they’re multi-faceted people who live beyond the garden. We use segmentation data to find patterns in their interests outside our category, and then challenge ourselves to meet them on common ground. Miracle-Gro has a unique set of content pillars that straddle its interest in gardening with other components of the brand’s identity. When we show up in a conversation that merges the two, they’re more likely to be interested in what we have to say.
LBB> Could you elaborate on the concept of ‘gardening 'and...'’ and how it has shaped your approach to content creation? What inspired this approach and how has it resonated with your audience?
Nadezhda> If Miracle-Gro only ever talked to gardeners about gardening, neither the brand nor our audience would grow. This concept of ‘gardening and…’ takes our content out of the category silo, and we do this by approaching our audience as a real human being with real layers, behaviours, rituals, likes and dislikes. This enables us to think with our brand and product first, while not boring our current audience or alienating those who haven’t yet realised their inner gardener.
This has transformed our content creation thematically, allowing us to play in exciting intersections such as gardening and catharsis, gardening and streaming titles, gardening and beauty, just as our audience does in their day-to-day lives.
LBB> The campaign incorporates immersive worlds like cottage-core and goth into the brand’s narrative. How do you ensure authenticity when representing these subcultures, and what role do influential voices play in this process?
Nadezhda> There is a screening test we internally use to survey our creative work when diving head first into social subcultures and subsequent fandom. We ask: ‘would Miracle-Gro as a brand have the authority to comment on certain discourse?’. For the cottage-core example, an aesthetic that revolves around an escapist return to the natural world in opposition to a nine to five grind set, we said ‘absolutely we can!’.
However, when we took an even deeper, more niche cut into cottage-core and surfaced this ‘goth garden’ trend, we deployed a specific creator because, simply put, they could show up in a more visually and tonally authentic way than we ever could from a craft perspective. It is important to note that our creator selection is hyper-specific – it’s a them or nobody mentality – because the crux of a creative concept is in direct alignment with who that creator is, what they stand for, and how they show up for their community.
LBB> Can you discuss the balance between entertainment and education in your content strategy? How do you ensure that content remains engaging while also providing value to your audience?
Nadezhda> Everything is entertainment, period. If somebody doesn’t want to sit with the content, stay for the full watch experience, and share it to their group chat, then we’re doing something wrong. And education can easily fit this mentality. That’s because we don’t limit the definition of education to ‘how-to’s’ with our product. It’s so much more than that. It’s about what the products can unlock for our audience: teaching them how to unlock confidence, healthy habits, creativity, mind-body connections, and so on.
LBB> Partnerships with influential voices seem integral to your strategy. How do you identify and collaborate with these voices, and what impact have they had on brand perception and engagement?
Nadezhda> Partnerships are not only integral to our strategy, but to our internal team structure and process. We treat our partnership team as if they were a traditional creative – they sit in on the briefings, brainstorm alongside the creative team for our partnership concepts, creative reviews, and so on. Integrating our teammates as early as possible in the process makes for much more intentional, thoughtful creator collaborations. We also have a penchant for partnering with creators who live deeply in a niche and are more micro in scale, but have an incredibly unique aesthetic and hyper-engaged social following.
LBB> The campaign aims to make gardening accessible to everyone. How do you approach inclusivity in your content, and what steps have you taken to ensure that the garden truly is for everyone?
Nadezhda> Diversity in team and client structure is incredibly important to us. Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability,life experiences, educational background, interests, likes/dislikes – all of these categories and more all come together harmoniously to create not only engaging creative work, but also a positive team dynamic full of trust and respect.
One of our key Martin values is curiosity. That is at the forefront of making accessible, inclusive creative ideas. Read the column, listen to the podcast, watch the documentary, scroll through the subreddit, and ask those important questions without fear. Lead with curiosity. If you’re a good student of a subculture, identity group, and/or affinity, you learn that communities are not a monolith…
Which brings me to our most recent work for Pride Month. As a queer person, I was thrilled to direct Pride creative that was not a rainbow washed mess (you know what I’m talking about). That was made possible by my fantastic curious teammates and my co-queers in leadership. We concepted social posts that catered to the full, intersectional spectrum of Pride: we styled green carnations (a centuries-old symbol for one’s gay identity, started by Oscar Wilde!); we created ‘good mood’ mood boards inspired by Pride flag colours; we turned ugly produce into drag queens (via the QPOC coined phrase ‘yassification’); and we educated our audience on top or bottom watering methods for their plants.
As you can see, the above posts cater to all different types of folks within the LGBTQIA+ community while also communicating how the garden is a safe space for all.
LBB> Looking ahead, what are your goals and aspirations for Miracle-Gro’s social presence? How do you plan to continue evolving and innovating in the digital space?
Saakait> We’ve invested in our guiding social ambition of becoming the next big lifestyle influencer - to make Miracle-Gro less of a brand and more of a way of life. We have a commitment to our newer gardeners to unlock the budding potential within them. It can be done via Miracle-Gro products, of course, but we also give our followers a positive mentality to buy into. When they believe in themselves, like we do, that’s when the awe blossoms.
