Camif partners with UGC platform Flowbox to launch anti-Black Friday campaign on their eCommerce website

Camif, a French brand which produces and sells home décor products, has partnered with Flowbox. Read on to see how the Flowbox platform has allowed Camif to carry out an innovative, community-focused anti-Black Friday campaign by utilizing User Generated Content.

Camif produces high-quality furnishings suited for all over the house. From the living room to the garden and the bedroom to the kitchen, these products are much loved among their thousands of customers. By centering its production and customer support efforts in France, the brand consistently supports the local community while simultaneously reducing its carbon footprint.

Camif has been operating in the field of interior design and decoration since 1947, when founder Edmond Proust created the business to help the members of his insurance company re-equip their homes after the destruction of the Second World War. In this way, even from the companies’ conception, they have always prioritized a sustainable and responsible business model, looking to better the world wherever they can.

The brand mission involves taking tangible steps that directly assist with positively addressing societal issues. Camif does this by committing to assisting with local employment levels, the environment, sustainable consumption, health and wellbeing, and progress in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. These steps then involve an audit to assure the quality and progress of their work in the community.

In order to meet their objectives of limiting their social and environmental impact, Camif has carried out a number of innovative initiatives such as trialing Hipli, a reusable parcel designed to reduce waste on every order. It is therefore no surprise that the business was awarded with B-Corp certification in 2015. Camif published its official mission statement in 2017 and began on the transformative path to obtaining the official status of “société à mission” in September 2020.

User content with a conscience

Camif has long opposed the concept of Black Friday. Since the brand prides itself on social responsibility and sustainability, the consumerist and wasteful nature of Black Friday goes against the commitments of Camif. The brand therefore wanted to carry out a creative campaign against Black Friday, while putting its community first. The Flowbox platform facilitated this ethical UGC campaign.

“We have a strong commitment to raising awareness around sustainable consumption in our society. We used Flowbox widgets to honor this by creating an ‘anti-Black Friday’ operation which allowed us to stand out from our competitors who are not necessarily committed like us.”

Léa Fayette, Community Manager at Camif

The team at Camif conducted their Black Friday by staging a sit-in. They placed one of their sofas outside the Made in France fair, and invited members of the public to sit down accompanied by a message about the protest. Moreover, Camif invited members of their community to post pictures from their sofas at home so that they too could take part in the social movement.

The Flowbox platform allowed Camif to collect and display all of the User Generated Content that they needed for a successful protest against Black Friday. With a gallery of images of the sit-in on a dedicated anti-Black Friday page and custom CTAs, Camif were able to stand out from their competitors by launching an extremely innovative campaign.

Flowbox: The ideal UGC solution

Camif also gets a huge amount of value out of the Flowbox platform on a day-to-day basis. Camif does not have any brick and mortar stores, and therefore it is vital for the company to add authenticity and context to its products in digital form. Instead of just displaying bland and generic product images, User Generated Content can allow potential customers to imagine how a certain product might look in their homes.

“There is an aspect of content authenticity. It’s more natural than a photoshoot that you do in a studio and you see the product in real life. UGC is also useful for making the brand more human, many times you see people on social media doing daily activities, like being on the sofa with their cats. That is also important for us since we are a little brand with a lot of human values.”

Aurélie Guinot, Content, Social Media & Influence Manager at Camif

The team at Camif also find that the captions of the Instagram posts that the Flowbox platform collects can bring their community closer together. Through these brief snippets of text, consumers can talk about the values that they share with Camif, such as shopping locally and in an environmentally responsible way. These are then displayed through Flowbox widgets on the Camif site, tying the brand and the community together.

“Our community relates to us because we share the same values, and they are eager to consume eco-responsibly and locally. In that sense, Flowbox allows us to upload not just pictures, but consumer texts. We want our clients to share our same values and a similar lifestyle.”

Aurélie Guinot, Content, Social Media & Influence Manager at Camif

Flowbox was not the first User Generated Content platform that the Camif team were aware of. They first discovered Olapic, but after some internal research they found that Flowbox was the best platform for them.

“Just so you know, I knew of Olapic first. We did a market study with an IT employee from our team, and we analyzed all the possible options available in the market. We found many different alternatives but just Flowbox met all of our needs.” 

Aurélie Guinot, Content, Social Media & Influence Manager at Camif

The implementation of the Flowbox UGC platform onto the Camif website was seamless and hassle-free. In the fast-paced world of eCommerce, the team at Camif especially appreciate how user-friendly the platform truly is. 

“The exchanges were fluid. We did not come across any obstacles and only two IT meetings with the Flowbox team were enough to set up the platform. From our side, with Léa, we took control of the platform quickly. Once we had a meeting with our Customer Success Manager, Teresa, everything was ready to go. The platform and features are very easy to use.”

Aurélie Guinot, Content, Social Media & Influence Manager at Camif