Maytag launched its annual Maytag Month campaign on Wednesday with a little help from a seasonal NSYNC meme and a few of the group members themselves.
Every year on April 30, the internet shares favorite “It’s Gonna Be May” memes, riffing on the pronunciation of NSYNC’s 2000 hit, “It’s Going To Be Me.” This is also the same day that Maytag launches its annual Maytag Month campaign, offering rebates on the purchase of appliances. This year, the brand decided to combine the two traditions into a social conversation piece.
“The idea of doing something with the meme was something we had discussed internally as a team in the past because the timing of the meme on April 30 is always right before our annual May is Maytag Month promotion,” Robert Sundy, Maytag’s senior director of brand marketing told AList.
“Maytag as a brand likes to have a bit of fun with our marketing and we’ve tapped into pop culture and trends in the past; however, this is the first time we tapped into the ‘It’s Gotta Be May’ meme itself,” Sundy added. “We wanted to go big [for Maytag Month], so in addition to re-creating the meme ourselves on Twitter and Instagram, we also partnered with Joey Fatone and Lance Bass to post the meme on their social channels and re-created one of our most popular ad spots to the tune of NSYNC’s ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ song.
Maytag is giving the campaign a push on Vevo, Hulu, Pandora and used #ItsGonnaBeMaytag as a promoted trend on Twitter April 30.
Sundy said they are “absolutely thrilled” by the consumer response. His team has several tracking KPIs including earned media, social engagement, video views, etc. but the campaign’s success will ultimately come down to purchases.
“In just 24 hours we saw thousands of tweets using our #ItsGonnaBeMaytag as well as more than 30,000 organic views to our ‘music video,’ so we’re really happy with the positive response the campaign has received so far,” said Sundy.
NSYNC rose to popularity during the early 2000s, which creates nostalgia for millennials—a key demographic for Maytag’s campaign.
“It’s critical to build relationships early with consumers and we hope younger audiences see this campaign and think of Maytag when they are in the market for kitchen and laundry appliances,” Sundy said.
