KOMA designs

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Author: KOMA designs

  • Influencer Marketing: Calvin Klein

    *All Images belong to Calvin Klein*

    In recent weeks, there has been a new fashion trend circulating on social media platforms since the release of Hulu’s series Love Story, based on the real-life story of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. Influencers have taken to their platforms with posts that are outfits, makeup tutorials, and hairstyles (even as far as dying their hair after watching the series), inspired by Carolyn and her iconic looks. One of the most common brands mentioned when discussing Carolyn’s fashion was Calvin Klein, the brand that employed her and launched her romance with JFK Jr. Calvin Klein has been known for its classic fashion as well as its iconic collaborations with its models, ranging from Brooke Shields to, as of recent, Bad Bunny. But what if Calvin Klein started utilizing the changing landscape of advertising and launched an influencer marketing campaign?

    Calvin Klein has iconic ads for their company of portraits of their models dressed in their clothes, ranging from their denim to their underwear. I believe if Calvin Klein begins to utilize the influencer space properly, they can see a real impact and ROI for their brand. I would set the objectives of the campaigns as the following: Utilize the current discussion on Carolyn Bessette’s iconic looks and raise brand awareness through influencers who have a similar fashion sense to her, and have a major increase in conversion through shopable ads, specifically through Instagram, to mimic the iconic billboard and in-store visuals. This can also be achieved through a series of sponsored posts from the influencers and utilizing affiliate marketing of a specific discount that is exclusive to the influencer’s code on the site. In regard to the content, the influencers would post, I think it would be best to mimic the iconic ads, a simple portrait with the iconic Calvin Klein pieces. Some of the pieces can be remakes of Carolyn’s most iconic looks, like the camel skirt and the simple black top, or the classic Calvin Klein denim. The influencers can also post a series of stories with affiliate links, showing how Calvin Klein fits seamlessly into their daily routine, much like it did for Carolyn. 

    The influencers I would recommend for this campaign are Emma Pritchard and Greta Tomé. Emma Pritchard is from Massachusetts (a nod to the Kennedys’ iconic home state) and has a total of 383K followers on Instagram and has a similar fashion sense to Carolyn, of simple yet classic outfits. Greta Tomé is from NYC and shows her life living on the Upper East Side, as well as her classic style ( a nod to the main setting of the series and the couple’s real-life home). Greta has a total of 308K followers on Instagram.

    Throughout the campaign, we will utilize the collaboration feature on Instagram and use Instagram insights to track the amount of engagement and click-throughs to the site, as well as purchases directly through Instagram’s shop feature. We will also track the number of times the specialized coupon code is used to track the number of customers who are coming directly from the influencers’ page. The only real challenge I can foresee for this campaign is that the allure of Calvin Klein’s ads may be lost on the younger users on the app. But this can be fixed by Calvin Klein posting a series of throwback posts to show the influences their ads and fashion have had on society over the years.

  • Audience Target Strategy: Kitsch

    When developing an audience target strategy, I chose to analyze and use the brand Kitsch. Kitsch is a female-founded and owned hair and body care brand. Kitsch is sold both in stores and has a strong online presence through apps like TikTok. If I were developing a strategy to develop and properly target a specific audience, I would first look at the products sold by the brand, as that will give more insight into how to properly target the people who will understand and value the brand and what it sells. 

    Kitsch sells a range of haircare, body care, and beauty tools. It was built out of the owner’s and founders’ need for elevated, sustainable beauty products. I would first focus on the demographics of our target audience for ads, which is mainly women on the platform. Kitsch makes a point to emphasize the relevance of being female-owned and founded through their site and social media posts. So ideally, the gender and age would be women from 18 to 65. I would also set the range of reach of these ads to worldwide, as the brand emphasizes their products’ sustainability features for the benefits of creating a healthy earth and minimizing beauty product waste through products like shampoo bars and solid face washes. 

    Then, further breaking down the ideal demographic, I would target those women who have an interest in beauty products and tools and have frequent interactions with beauty brands and beauty advertisements. When developing the target audience, we can also utilize those who are following a large number of beauty influencers and have made past purchases on beauty brand sites, who may be our competitors through social media ads. I would target those who have the room in their budget to purchase beauty products outside of the typical drugstore range, as I wouldn’t classify Kitsch as luxury, but it also sits outside the drugstore range 

    For the lookalike audience, I would recommend narrowing in on the women from the ages of 18-40 who prirotize self care and using sustainable products, as well as following the trend in the beauty industry of prioritizing purchasing clean beauty products, which Kitsch does offer through their products. I would also recommend narrowing our target audience to the women who prioritize using aesthetically pleasing beauty products. Kitsch offers a range of products that are both functional and look luxe and high quality for a middle-of-the-pack price point.

    Through these two target audiences, I believe Kitsch could see a return on their investments in social media advertisements through not only conversions but also finding customers that align with the brand’s value and mission through its products.

  • Paid Social Media Ad Audit: #TeamPepsi

    To complete a paid social media ad audit, I chose to use Pepsi’s latest ad campaign, which I have heard about widely, from social media ads to podcast placement ads. Pepsi launched “The Pepsi Challenge” over the last few weeks to invite soda lovers to taste test Pepsi Zero and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar and pick a “team”. 

    The objective of the ad was to increase conversions through social media engagement, as the ad drives conversations about which brand tastes better by encouraging soda consumers to go to stores to buy both brands, post their taste tests on social media, and choose “TeamPepsi.” The actual ad utilizes the actual competition between the brands through their visuals. Pepsi brought in an animated polar bear, which is widely known as a Coca-Cola image, and had the bear complete a blind taste test and pick its own competitor as the better-tasting soda, and shows the bear being torn by its choice in the taste test and being jealous of those who can openly enjoy their Pepsi’s out in public and ends with the bear ultimately accepting its fate asa pepsi lover. Much like the bear, Pepsi alludes in its copy that they are accepting of soda consumers who will complete the taste test and join “TeamPepsi.”

    The ad was ultimately successful in its engagement with followers and users. On Facebook alone, the ad had 112k Likes, 2.3K comments, 11K shares, and a total of 3.1M views as of February 2026. One could assume this ad is targeted to those soda consumers who are passionately opinionated about the age-old question of what’s better: Pepsi or Coke? 

    While the ad has ultimately successful in reach and engagement, I would recommend the following adjustments for the ad to reach maximum potential and ROI for the brand.

    Firstly, while I think the use of the Coca-Cola bear was a fun take on the way to depict the competition between the brands over the years, I think messaging could be misconstrued by consumers, thinking it’s a Coca-Cola ad rather than a Pepsi ad. I think Pepsi would do well with developing its own mascot or image that can be tied to the brand, the way Coca-Cola has done with polar bears, and using that for future ads.

    Another recommendation I have for Pepsi for the success of this campaign would be to utilize influencers for the social media ads. Utilizing social media influencers can help spread the campaign as well as the taste test experience, similarly to other viral campaigns we’ve seen on social media, like the “healthy diet coke” trend that went viral on TikTok back in 2023. Using social media influencers for this campaign can also build up trust between the brand and its target consumer by giving real faces to the campaign as opposed to an animated mascot for the leading competitor.

  • Facebook Ad Campaign: Bringing Crunch Fitness to Long Beach

    For the purpose of beginning to experiment with Meta Business Suite, we were assigned to pick a company and develop a mock advertisement through Meta Business Suite to run for a targeted group of users on social media.

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    First, I decided what type of advertisement I wanted to run for the mock ad. I chose to develop a mock ad for the fitness franchise Crunch and act as if Crunch were opening a new location in Long Beach, New York, and looking to gain customers. I chose a traffic ad to bring the interested parties to Crunch’s website to sign up for a membership.

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    Then I determined the location I wanted the mock ad to be target to. I chose to target any Facebook or Instagram users in Long Beach.

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    I then developed the demographic I wanted to target through the mock ad. I chose the age range of 21-50. I then targeted the ad to all genders and further targeted it through the specific interests of Crunch’s ideal customer. Those being, Fitness Trainers and people who had an interest in Crunch Fitness, Health, and wellness.

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    After developing the mock ad, I then reviewed the ad and selected to share the mock ad to Facebook and Instagram in its entireity (stories, posts, feeds etc;)

  • Pleasing By Harry Styles: Analyzing and Enhancing Organic Social Media Performance

    Pleasing was created and launched by Harry Styles in November 2021. Pleasing has since turned into a massive unisex wellness and lifestyle brand. Across its social media platforms, it has accumulated over 2 million followers. For the sake of this discussion, I am going to discuss specifically the brand’s Instagram content and how it is currently performing, as well as adjustments I believe will help the brand to further develop its engagement and community outreach. Pleasing has the potential of reaching not only the dedicated fans of its founder but also anyone interested in the lifestyle/wellness space, so the content they post must reflect and be relatable to both parties. 

    Pleasing’s Instagram as of January 2026 has a following of 1.3 million followers. I found through my analysis that the content that was the most widely engaged with by followers was content that featured UGC being repurposed for their marketing campaigns of products.

    The UGC content on the platform is also a large portion of the brand’s posts on Instagram. This allows for space for community building, as followers will feel accepted by the brand beyond being viewed as just another customer to try and sell the product and brand too.

    UGC content for a brand like Pleasing that is created by a celebrity like Harry Styles often gives way to content making itself. I found the way Pleasing actually utilized the fans or followers as their models for the products to be a creative way to bring the brand down to a relatable level for other potential customers and followers, rather than using other celebrities to market the product or brand.

    Following the UGC content on the profile, the next trend in their content that received the most engagement was content promoting their pop-up shops. Pleasing has hosted pop-up shops for the launch of products, allowing for a physical, immersive experience for its customers in cities like London, NYC, and, most recently, Miami.

    I found this to be an area of content that can be tailored to better foster engagement and eventually conversions for the brand. Pleasing as of right now is only promoting the pop-up shops. I believe the brand could benefit from content that shows what the pop-up shop experience is really like. This is something that can be done with UGC content again. Pleasing could invite fans to film or take photos of their experience for the chance to be featured on the instagram. Or Pleasing can develop a campaign that runs for the length of the campaign, like showing the development of the pop-up shops through the planning, construction, and execution of the pop-up. Showing more of what the pop-up shop experience is like may lead to conversions either inperson at the shop or online, once fans feel like they can and want to buy into the product and pop-up, ultimately leading to more success for the brand.

  • Daphne By Paige Desorbo: A Deep Dive on Key Metrics

    The brand I chose to analyze its key metrics between organic and paid strategies was the ready-to-wear lounge wear brand Daphne. Daphne was created in 2025 by social media influencer, reality star, and podcast host Paige Desorbo. Paige was inspired to create Daphne after not being able to find ready-to-wear lounge pieces that would be comfortable to sit in at home on the couch, but also be ready to grab a coffee with a friend. Paige announced the brand in June of 2025 to her following of 1.6M followers on Instagram. 

    I chose to specifically narrow in on the brand’s Instagram and its key metrics. The first metric I chose to look into was the following count. Daphne, as of January 2026, has acquired a following of 158K since its launch in June. When compared to founder Paige Desorbo’s follower count, there is definite room for growth for the brand’s exposure.  

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    From my scroll and study of the profile, Daphne tends to average about 200-400 likes on each post. This is obviously very low for the high follow count the brand has. To reference Understanding Social Media ROI by Olivier Blanchard, I then moved on from the “vanity” metrics, like follow counts and likes (while not to negate its importance for the brand’s ability to grow) and began to break each post for more concrete data points that will tell me more about the actual exposure and reach the brand has at this current moment. Going further into the brand’s engagement, each post typically receives a range of 2-40 comments, depending on the call to action in the post’s caption. The posts with the most comments featured actual people or models in the posts, rather than the BTS brand posts, for the process of creating each “drop” for the line. Which was something I made note of, as this is a brand created by a reality personality, so the consumer liking and engaging in posts that featured her or actual people made sense to me. I also noticed Daphne posted a majority of organic or UGC posts rather than sponsored ads or collaborations.

    I began to zoom out on the social media profile in order to gather what appears to be Daphne’s main priority on its Instagram. As previously stated, this is a new brand, so it appeared to me that Daphne is focused on narrowing in on what their ideal consumer actually is and what the brand image will become in order to attract them. Daphne began its Instagram posting behind- the-scenes to the launch and creation of the brand’s first capsule collection and then pivoted to more people-facing content, whether it be through using fellow social media influencers as models for its newest items or Paige herself. I believe this was an intentional shift of the brand, realizing the people who want to buy from this brand want to buy a piece that connects to a social media/ reality personality who has either a lifestyle or literal style they are actively trying to achieve. 

    When it comes to improvements the brand can make, I think the brand could benefit from utilizing more sponsored posts from fellow social media personalities that align with the chic, easy, on-the-go vibe the brand’s clothing represents.  This could also help Daphne begin to tailor and zone in on their ideal consumer and create a full persona for whoever that may be.

    Sources:

    Blanchard, O. (2011). Social Media Roi: Managing and measuring social media efforts in your organization. Que.

  • Why are we buying it?: Celebrity Brands and the Consumer Psychology Behind The Purchase

    Have you ever wondered why celebrities are constantly coming out with new brands and products? When did we switch from celebrity endorsements to celebrities becoming the CEO of brands?

    Why do we, as consumers, care what they are selling? And what do we gain by purchasing their products?

    Below, I have attached some of the most well-known celebrity-owned lines that will eventually be used in a medium-length article in the upcoming weeks that discusses the consumer psychology behind celebrity brands and the stories of both successes and failures celebrities have seen from their line.

  • LoverBoy E-Newsletter

    A newsletter inspired by LoverBoy – all logos and images belong to LoverBoy.

    Loverboy emailDownload

  • Grammar Refresh you didnt know you needed.

    See anything wrong with that title? Maybe the grammatical errors that were all throughout it? You didn’t notice? Then this is the refresh for you! 

    In On Writing Well, author William Zinsser writes an entire chapter on the importance of grammar in writing. Beyond having the article or piece of content readable for the audience, Zinsser explains the importance of using grammar to enhance your writing while stressing the importance of not losing your voice or message because of technical writing. But first we have understand or better yet, refresh ourselves on grammar as a whole.

    Verbs: words used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.

    Example: Buy – I am buying a gift for my mom.

    Adverbs: a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. 

    Example: Softly – the boy walked softly down the hall. 

    Adjectives: a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it.

    Example: Dazzling- Wendy’s engagement ring was dazzling!

    Nouns: a word (other than a pronoun) used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things (common noun), or to name a particular one of these (proper noun).

    Example: School – My father works in a school. 

    And last but certainly not least, 

    Punctuation: the marks, such as period, comma, and parentheses, used in writing to separate sentences and their elements and to clarify meaning

    Example: (!) – I can’t believe he said that about her!

    Not to negate Zinsser’s ideas about the importance of grammar when it comes to conveying your message and developing your voice as a writer, but it is also important to remember its proper technical use in writing.

    Sources:

    Zinsser, William K. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. HarperCollins, 2006.

  • Content is King?

    Disclaimer: This blog post and image was created, written, and designed without AI

    After reading the essay “Content is King” by Bill Gates from 1996, I found the concept of a past prediction of the importance the internet would have on content particularly interesting. Gates throughout the essay discuss the importance of tailoring content to fit the effort the user goes through to access the information. Gates first discusses how the print media needs to properly adjust its content to fit into the overstimulating medium that is the internet, so it is not lost in the shuffle of an internet surf. “If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video.”

    I also found it interesting in today’s day and age to see Bill Gates cover the topic of advertising on the internet. “In the long run, advertising is promising. An advantage of interactive advertising is that an initial message needs only to attract attention rather than convey much information. A user can click on the ad to get additional information-and an advertiser can measure whether people are doing so.” as we know today, we are constantly inundated with ads on the internet, no matter where you go on the WWW (World Wide Web). I found it interesting when you think of the business of social media marketing and the recent development of influencers. Rather than a stark image popping up as you enter a website, today we are interrupted by a real person on the other side of our screen, actually touching, feeling, and using the product. People have even begun to make millions and lifelong businesses off this idea. When looking back to the late 90s it’s interesting to skepticism around advertising online when it’s one of the most popular and sought-after jobs today.

    Sources:

    Evans, Heath. “‘content Is King’ – Essay by Bill Gates 1996.” Medium, Medium, 28 Oct. 2017, medium.com/@HeathEvans/content-is-king-essay-by-bill-gates-1996-df74552f80d9