Learn how Daniel Wellington built a $230M watch empire using influencer marketing strategies like product seeding & ambassador programs.
By Priya Nain | October 26, 2022 | 7 minute read
Daniel Wellington transformed from a bootstrapped startup into a global watch empire generating $230 million in revenue by pioneering influencer marketing strategies that other brands now emulate. This case study breaks down the exact tactics that made Daniel Wellington one of the most successful influencer marketing stories in eCommerce history.
In 2017, when influencer marketing was still emerging, Daniel Wellington was already partnering with thousands of influencers. Their success came not from expensive celebrity endorsements, but from leveraging many "small" celebrities—nano and micro-influencers who created authentic content at scale.
In 2006, Filip Tysander, a Swedish entrepreneur, traveled across Australia when he met a stylish English gentleman. That man was fond of vintage watches and wore them with old NATO straps. The style was impeccable but understated, which impressed Filip.1
After returning to Sweden, Tysander invested a couple of thousand dollars into starting a company making elegant, minimalistic watches with interchangeable straps. He named the brand after the man who inspired him: Daniel Wellington.2
Since its inception in 2011, Daniel Wellington has achieved remarkable growth:
The hashtag #danielwellington has such extensive content that viewing just the last 4 days of posts requires several minutes of continuous scrolling.
Daniel Wellington watches are worn by models and stars including: - Hailey Bieber - Selena Gomez - Lee Jong Suk - Ayushmann Khurrana - Radhika Apte
Filip Tysander's background in marketing contributed to Daniel Wellington's strategic approach. However, influencer marketing became the centerpiece of their success, utilizing the power of many "small" celebrities rather than ultra-popular names that traditional watch brands like Rolex typically employ.
In 2018, Daniel Wellington received over 1.2 million brand mentions across social media platforms. To put this in perspective, popular brands like Nike and Sephora received less than 10% of that number during the same period.
This success through influencer marketing, instead of pumping money into traditional advertising, helped Daniel Wellington stay bootstrapped with no pressure to raise venture capital funding.
Influencer product seeding (also called product gifting) means sending free products to influencers in the hope that they will post about your product, share their reviews, and drive brand awareness plus social proof.
Daniel Wellington's Approach:
Daniel Wellington started influencer marketing by product seeding with nano-influencers before moving to a paid-partnership model with more prominent influencers. They would ask influencers to post pictures of themselves wearing a watch using the branded hashtag #danielwellington.
The Results:
The after-effect was an explosion of photos with branded hashtags, a boom in sales, and Daniel Wellington becoming a leader in the lifestyle brand category. When many influencers were given creative freedom, fresh and engaging content emerged.
Why This Works:
This strategy is particularly effective with nano-influencers (creators with less than 20,000 followers) because posting on social media or brand collaborations is not their full-time pursuit. Hence, they are more likely to agree to free products instead of monetary benefits.
To maximize influencer marketing ROI, Daniel Wellington repurposes influencer content on their own social media and even on their website as product images.
Content Usage Rights Strategy:
Here's a script for requesting usage rights (usage rights define who owns the content and where it can be used):
"Hey {first_name},
We're so glad you loved our gift. Thank you for sharing it in your story.
We'd love to be able to share this with our audiences as well! Could we have the right to use this content on organic and paid social sites for 30 days?
Thank you."
Examples of Content Repurposing:
The Innovation:
Mixing product gifting and getting authentic influencer UGC (user-generated content) as a strategy was pioneered by Daniel Wellington but is now perfected by multiple eCommerce brands. This is one of the cheapest ways (almost free apart from the cost of the product) to get free ad creatives, product images, or social media photos generated at scale.
Every influencer that promotes any of Daniel Wellington's products gets a unique promo code for their audience.
Three Key Benefits:
Influencer Motivation: It motivates the influencer to post about the brand since they get to be heroes in their fans' eyes, offering them great deals.
Purchase Incentive: The influencer's fans get a nudge to buy the product because of the extra discount.
Performance Tracking: The brand can measure approximate ROI of each collaboration by tracking the purchases made with each coupon. They can then choose to add or drop influencers based on that data.
Campaign Consistency:
Apart from the personalized code, every influencer receives comprehensive brand guideline briefs on the campaign and essential information to include in posts. Analysis of Daniel Wellington's campaigns shows that every post in their SUMMER campaign included: - Campaign name - Collection name - Full offer with discounts - Freebies and special promotions - Personalized promo code
Apart from running promotional campaigns throughout the year, Daniel Wellington strategically collaborates with influencers around times when there's a high probability of someone buying their watch as a gift for someone.
Key Seasonal Campaigns: - Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) - Valentine's Day - Mother's Day - Father's Day - Holiday season
The Strategy:
The perfect excuse to buy a Daniel Wellington item coupled with social proof from an influencer that people look up to and topped with a discount creates a powerful sales driver. This strategy is particularly effective as the cost of clicks on Facebook ads during holiday periods is typically high, given that every brand wants to capture consumers' attention.
Daniel Wellington has a dedicated influencer landing page that invites people to become brand ambassadors.
Landing Page Optimization:
The top of the page is optimized to get someone registered as an ambassador with: - Repeating call-to-action buttons - Strong mission statement - Stylish brand imagery
The second half of the page covers: - Ambassador perks and benefits - Frequently asked questions - Program details
Evolution to Global Icons:
After more than a decade of growth and collaborations with nano-influencers, micro-influencers, and macro-influencers, Daniel Wellington now works with global icons to promote their brand and new collections.
The 'Link' Collection Campaign:
For their 'Link' collection, Daniel Wellington partnered with seven global ambassadors: - Hailey Bieber (model, USA) - Odell Beckham Jr. (NFL player, USA) - Lay Zhang (singer-songwriter, China) - Lee Sung Kyung (model and actress, South Korea) - Ayushmann Khurrana (Bollywood star, India) - Radhika Apte (Bollywood star, India) - Paulo Dybala (soccer player, popular in Europe)
According to a Daniel Wellington spokesperson in a Forbes interview:
"We picked seven different icons that we think stand for great things that we want to talk about. Some of the other faces are very locally relevant. We're not picking one face that tries to represent the entire world—together, they do it, but of course, we want to show that we are a watch that's great for people in India, the US, China, and Sweden as well."3
According to LinkedIn data, Daniel Wellington has approximately 9 people in their influencer marketing team:
Team Structure: - Global Head of Influencer Marketing (department leader) - Regional Influencer Marketing Managers - Influencer Marketing Coordinators - Freelancing consultants for operational support
This team manages thousands of influencer relationships across multiple markets and coordinates global campaigns while maintaining brand consistency.
If you don't have a clue about influencer marketing, start with Instagram. It's likely that your audience hangs out there. Multiple brands have validated the platform and found their top influencers with hashtags. Many tools are built around Instagram to help you execute your strategy, even if you are a one-person team.
As a small brand, giving out money in exchange for posts from influencers might put a burden on your cash flow, so try influencer seeding. When the collaboration is not just about money and is about your product and brand as well, it will help you build long-term creator relationships.
If you are skeptical about how you will measure the ROI of influencer marketing, give unique promo codes to your influencers to track purchases. This provides concrete data on which partnerships drive actual sales.
Boost sales during holidays and events using influencer marketing, as the cost of clicks on Facebook ads during such times is usually high, given everyone wants to get consumers' attention. Influencer partnerships can provide better ROI during these peak periods.
Maximize your investment by requesting usage rights and repurposing influencer-generated content across your own channels. This provides authentic social proof and reduces content creation costs.
Create a dedicated landing page and program for ongoing influencer relationships. Ambassador programs create consistent content flow and deeper brand advocacy than one-off campaigns.
Daniel Wellington's influencer marketing strategy centers on product seeding with nano and micro-influencers, personalized promo codes for tracking, repurposing influencer-generated content, seasonal campaigns around holidays, and a global brand ambassador program. They pioneered the approach of gifting products to thousands of smaller influencers rather than paying large sums to celebrity endorsers.
Daniel Wellington started by sending free watches to nano-influencers (creators with less than 20k followers) and asking them to post pictures wearing the watch with the branded hashtag #danielwellington. This product gifting strategy allowed them to generate massive amounts of user-generated content and social proof at minimal cost, as nano-influencers were more likely to accept free products instead of monetary compensation.
The hashtag #danielwellington has achieved remarkable performance with 166M+ views on TikTok and 2,429,989 posts on Instagram. This massive user-generated content volume demonstrates the success of their influencer seeding and ambassador strategies.
Every influencer promoting Daniel Wellington products receives a unique promo code for their audience. This strategy motivates influencers to post (as they become heroes offering deals), encourages purchases through discounts, and allows the brand to track ROI by measuring purchases made with each coupon code to optimize their influencer partnerships.
Daniel Wellington has a dedicated influencer landing page that invites people to become brand ambassadors. The program is designed to create ongoing relationships with influencers who regularly promote the brand. The landing page features repeating CTAs, a strong mission statement, and outlines perks for ambassadors, making it easy for interested creators to register.
Daniel Wellington maximizes influencer marketing ROI by repurposing influencer-generated content on their own social media channels and website as product images. They request usage rights from influencers and then use the authentic content across organic and paid social channels, effectively getting free ad creatives and product photography at scale.
Daniel Wellington strategically runs influencer campaigns around special events and holidays when there's high probability of gift purchases, including Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM), Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day. This timing combines social proof from influencers with natural gift-giving occasions and promotional discounts to boost sales.
According to LinkedIn data, Daniel Wellington has approximately 9 people in their influencer marketing team, including a global Head of Influencer Marketing, regional Influencer Marketing managers, coordinators, and freelancing consultants to help run operations across different markets.
Daniel Wellington succeeded with nano-influencers because these creators (with less than 20,000 followers) were more willing to accept free products instead of monetary compensation, as social media wasn't their full-time pursuit. This allowed Daniel Wellington to scale partnerships with thousands of influencers at minimal cost while generating authentic, diverse content.
Small brands can replicate Daniel Wellington's strategy by starting with product seeding to nano-influencers on Instagram, providing unique promo codes for tracking ROI, requesting usage rights to repurpose content, timing campaigns around seasonal gift-giving occasions, and building an ambassador program for ongoing relationships. The key is prioritizing authentic partnerships over expensive celebrity endorsements.
Daniel Wellington's innovative influencer marketing strategy showcases the power of authentic partnerships and creative content in building a global brand. By leveraging nano-influencers, repurposing genuine user content, and integrating personalized promo codes, Daniel Wellington not only amplified its reach but also fostered a loyal community.
This approach serves as a compelling blueprint for modern brands aiming to achieve sustainable growth in the digital landscape. The key lessons—product seeding, content repurposing, performance tracking through promo codes, seasonal campaigns, and ambassador programs—are all replicable strategies that brands of any size can implement.
The success of Daniel Wellington proves that influencer marketing, when executed strategically and authentically, can be more effective than traditional advertising while requiring significantly less capital investment. Their journey from a bootstrapped startup to a $230 million global brand demonstrates that the right influencer strategy can drive exponential growth without venture capital funding.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/filiptysander/ - Filip Tysander LinkedIn Profile ↩
https://eu.danielwellington.com/ - Daniel Wellington Official Website ↩
https://www.forbes.com/sites/celiashatzman/2019/09/24/daniel-wellington-launches-iconic-link-collection-global-campaign-hailey-bieber-odell-beckham-jr/ - Forbes Article on Daniel Wellington's Link Collection Campaign ↩↩