PhotoRoom · AI photo editing app
Host a press-only store event with a famous comedian and a hobby brand
No branded search uplift, vs 18% in London; an expensive lesson
Failedeventspartnershipspr-launch
What they did
In Japan (large PhotoRoom market with many collector users), partnered with model-kit maker Tamiya to host a community event at its new offices/store. The local team hired comedian Kamuri to host. Because he wanted a closed audience, attendance was limited to journalists, press and TV, relying 100% on media coverage for exposure.
What happened
No uplift in branded search; comedian's audience cared about comedy, not selling online. Lesson: aim at the ICP or make it a wide consumer event.
- Effort
- One event; guest calls it a very expensive learning
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How To Repurpose Offline Events Into Millions Of Online Impressions – Larissa Morimoto, PhotoRoom“we ended up partnering with Tamiya to host a community event in their new offices that they opened up”
“we relied 100% on press and journalists and TV coverage to maximize your chances of exposure. But since Kamuri has never, A, sold online and B, doesn't have a conventional business, his audience did not care about what we were doing.”
“we didn't see any uplift from the Kamuri campaign”
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More from PhotoRoom
All 9 PhotoRoom tacticsMore from this episode
- PhotoRoom: Grow mainly through paid ads once the product clearly worksReached ~300M downloads and $50M+ ARR; later hit ad fatigue and rising CPAs
- PhotoRoom: Rent giant street screens where passersby try the app and see their photos15,000 people reached, 4M+ online views, 18% more branded search, trade press coverage
- PhotoRoom: Bring your ad makers to live events and reuse the footage in ads and posts4M+ views; TikTok-style clips did better than expected on LinkedIn
- PhotoRoom: Judge brand campaigns by brand-name searches and surveys, not cost per installFreed the team to try new channels; claim only
- Calm: Partner with a sports superstar to promote a sleep appMost expensive and worst-performing campaign, per a former employee
- PhotoRoom: Run a TikTok ambassador programWorked for a while, then stalled as everyone copied it
- PhotoRoom: Make ads for small-business owners fun and consumer-style, not businesslike
- PhotoRoom: Team up with a hit movie so users can put themselves on its set