Social Media Unwrapped: Lounge Underwear

In our new blog series, ‘Social Media Unwrapped’ we deep-dive into the social media strategies of some of today’s most talked-about brands. 

For the first blog, we’ll be looking at much-loved underwear and apparel brand Lounge Underwear which has had influencer partnerships with the likes of Molly-Mae Hague, Saffron Barker, Anastasia Kingsnorth and up and coming influencers like Sydney May Crouch. 

The Story Behind Lounge Underwear 

Lounge Underwear was founded by couple Daniel and Melanie Marsden in 2015, with Daniel being in charge of the business side and Melanie fronting the branding side. 

Initially beginning as an underwear brand, Lounge Underwear has quickly grown into the loungewear apparel market and beyond, including a swim range last year. 

Both Daniel and Melanie believed that knowing how to market a product was the key to success, with them saying that they ‘built Lounge backwards’ creating the perfect marketing strategy on how to get their product in front of the right people first, then moving back to looking at the actual product. This is how it was decided that the first product would be the triangle bra as the branding quickly tells the social audience exactly what the brand is behind the design. 

This was a time when social media was on a trajectory of popularity and Lounge used this to their advantage by utilising social media and the rising influencer market as their only marketing strategy, bargaining on word of mouth to do the work for them. 

With the loungewear product, it is no surprise that the year deemed unsuccessful for many brands, 2020 was the year Lounge thrived being the perfect work from home apparel. The year 2020 alone saw Lounge generate $19 million in sales and quadruple their team to 80 employees.

Key Messaging

Before unwrapping its strategy, it is important to understand Lounge’s key messaging. There are two key messages: sustainability and female empowerment. 

Sustainability

Lounge Underwear is a 100% carbon neutral brand and they have strived to make their products as sustainable as possible, specifically creating apparel from bamboo.

CEO Daniel is quoted on their website: “Taking big steps to become a more sustainable brand was an easy decision for us.

“Building a company that takes responsibility for its impact on the world was not a choice for us, it was simply black and white.

We are by no means done with our journey on becoming a greener company, but this is not done from a shallow CSR point of view – we are genuinely passionate about making a difference for everyone’s future.”

This messaging is seen through both their website and an Instagram highlight on their channel.

Female Empowerment

When founding Lounge, co-founder in charge of branding, Melanie was adamant about creating a community for women through empowerment. This is evident throughout Lounge’s social presence with women of different sizes, backgrounds and ethnicities being highlighted throughout the branding. Additionally, the website offers those browsing the choice of what size model to see their potential product on. This message is further pushed through UGC copy with ‘#MyLoungeLife Female Family’ being often used.

The Strategy Unwrapped 

Lounge has a social media presence on most platforms such as: 

As previously mentioned, Lounge was founded in a time when social media, particularly influencers influence on fans were on the rise. Therefore, instead of putting money into other marketing channels, Lounge honed in on solely influencer marketing and organic content. 

The goal was to get Lounge worn by influencers with rising popularity and tagging Lounge, driving traffic to Lounge’s own channels and website. Once potential buyers are pushed to the channels, Lounge’s organic content does the rest of the work.

This was certainly a risk but looking back, it certainly paid off. Lounge created partnerships with influencers with smaller and bigger reach to get in front of the perfect demographic before the influencer marketing storm massively hit our socials. Nowadays, almost every UK influencer is seen in Lounge underwear and apparel. 

Lounge has utilised influencer insights to grow internationally by seeing which demographic countries are engaging with the content to determine where Lounge could thrive. Leading to the brand currently being in 11 countries including Australia and the Netherlands. 

Are you a fan of Lounge Underwear? Let us know in the comments on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or TikTok.

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