A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to create organic marketing, but that is paradoxical by definition. In order for marketing to truly be organic, you probably aren’t going to see it coming.
Enter the Staples Baddie.
The retail giant Staples, which distributes branded merch under its subsidiary Staples Promotional Products, PPAI 100’s No. 8 distributor, has achieved viral success through one of its employees who deems herself the “Staples Baddie.” An in-store customer would refer to her (by her nametag) as Kaeden, but her hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers know to search for “Oblivion” (or her handle, @blivxx).
What does the Staples Baddie do, exactly? Well, she talks about Staples and what it has to offer as if her audience has no clue what’s inside. After all, you could argue her Gen Z followers are mostly unfamiliar with the retailer’s offerings, having grown up in a world where products and services can all be ordered online. With tattoos and a nose ring, she is not trying to fit a specific corporate or consumer-facing mold, and she talks directly to her followers, almost like she is trying to pass the time with a friend on her lunch break.
The result, based on the posts’ comments and virality, is that young people are responding to the content and discovering enthusiasm for Staples, something that the retailer would admit had previously lacked with the generation. Along with the uniqueness of the delivery mechanism, the Staples Baddie clearly has a gift for communication, demonstrating how much easier her employer’s services are to use than audiences might have realized.
At the time of publishing, Staples’s official TikTok account has 47.1k followers. The Staples Baddie has 472.2k followers.
A Match Made In Heaven?
While there is a lightning in a bottle nature to Staples’s success with Kaeden, it’s a testament to letting employees on the frontlines of companies use their voices through social media to help propel the brand. On the contrary, many businesses restrict their staffs with implicit social media policies. Staples may not have masterminded the success of the Staples Baddie, but it appears smart enough to know what it lucked into.
Kaeden was not a paid as an influencer. She only received wages in accordance with her retail role. It’s entirely possible that will change. “We’ve connected with her to share our appreciation, and we are exploring opportunities to collaborate and continue supporting her creativity and engagement with the community,” Bob Sherwin, the company’s chief marketing officer, told Fast Company.
A fair amount of attention is paid to the specific social media strategy of the Staples Baddie, but it’s worth noting that she’s also just connecting a younger generation with a hands-on, personal version of many offerings that are available to them in a scattershot of impersonal options within their lives.
- To that point, another lesson here is that many of these viewers like what Staples has to offer, they just never knew that was the case.
- A similar argument can be made for branded merch in general: The tangible and personal are appealing to people who are shown that it is available to them.
Bill Grossman was promoted to senior vice president and head Staples Promotional Products earlier this month.
