Archive for the ‘FMCG’ Category
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
Another first for the blog to see us into the bank holiday weekend – this time we welcome Julian Schollmeyer, our Client Services Manager based out of Berlin, with the salutary story of a German social campaign… ^MF
It started out as just another social media crowdsourcing campaign along the lines of Walkers’ ‘Do Us A Flavour‘ and Mountain Dew’s DEWmocracy.
“Pril”, the well-known brand of washing-up liquid from German FMCG company Henkel, was due for a makeover. Henkel launched a campaign on the net where users could design their own ‘individual’ bottle using a tool set with mostly predefined graphics (i.e. colourful flowers, birds etc) to stamp on the virtual label. The two designs with the most votes would then hit the shelves in October. So far, so predictable.
However, having users stamp pre-defined flowers on a label and then hailing it as a crowdsourcing campaign struck copywriter Peter Breuer as, frankly, lame. So he chose the pen from the tool menu as his weapon of choice and produced a more, well, unique design – then asked his followers on Twitter to vote for it:
His idea? Chicken flavoured Pril!
His design quickly went up to number one and blogs as well as news magazines were quick to cover the story, resulting in even more votes.
Looking at this, I’d say Henkel had it coming, but maybe they had a premonition that something like this might happen, as they built in insurance: the fact that an internal jury would choose two designs from the top ten. Surely there’d be two designs in there containing only those lovely flowers and birds!? Well, there are, but Peter’s Chicken flavoured Pril inspired a lot of people to upload their weirdest ideas and see if they can steal one of the top positions; at the time of writing this is the leader.
As the story unfolded, blogs and online magazines discussed the bigger issue here: what does a crowdsourcing campaign need to look like if it wants to be taken seriously, and how could the Pril campaign have been better designed?
In the meantime, Peter Breuer stated on Facebook that he in no way intended to protest against Henkel or its brand Pril and that he never imagined that his doodle of a chicken would cause such broad repercussions. However, he was pleased to see that bloggers and media alike posed the question whether a campaign like this can actually be classified as being an effective marketing tool. He adds that he would like to see social media being used more for benevolent and socially beneficial purposes instead.
I’m confident that the next German crowdsourcing campaigns will look very different, and that this will mainly be thanks to the learnings from the Pril campaign.
How would *you* have improved the project?
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
I’m a big fan of itsu.
For one thing, there are three outlets very near our office, and their salmon and tuna sushi with extra ginger and wasabi makes my lunchtime just that bit lovelier.
For another, they have an inherently social style. Sure, their social media presence is poor. They run some Foursquare deals but they’re not on Facebook or Twitter, which is surprising considering their health-conscious, urban, new-media sort of patrons. But social media isn’t everything. What they do have is a charismatic founder; a strong, authentic and playful identity that permeates everything they do; talkative, helpful staff; and a great, constantly evolving product.
Even better, this is what I found on my tray when I treated myself to a noodle soup yesterday.
Swiftly reactive, personal, heartfelt and conversational. Now that’s what I call super-social CSR.
There are itsu evangelists out there crying out for engagement; harness the brand’s existing instincts to some kick-ass tools and on/offline tactics, and these sushi sellers have stellar social potential.
Friday, March 18th, 2011
When talking with FMCG brands, I hear the same sentiment over and over.
Word of mouth is all very well for sexy or luxury brands – but why would anyone bother talking about products that are so everyday?
Our instinct is to assume that word of mouth has the biggest influence over the biggest purchases in our lives. We love to talk about our new car, because it defines us in such a visible way. We ask loads of opinions before splashing out on that expensive new tablet, because the stakes are so high. But do we really bother seeking out loo cleaner recommendations? Do we really evangelise about the awesomeness of our orange juice? Aren’t those transactions more private, daily, habitual – and rarely aired in public?
As is often the case with word of mouth, our instincts underestimate how inherently social a species we are.
Take beverages. The juice you swill in the morning, the soft drink you reach for with lunch, the tipple you sip after work – we are rarely aware of talking about our choices in these instances, let alone asking for advice. But research has shown that these low cost products fuel huge amounts of conversation on and offline. For example:
- Consumers, on average, mention 7.2 beverage (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) brands to friends per week. These are two of the most common consumption categories to be recommended and to have recommendations requested
- 80% of consumers read other consumers’ reviews and feedback about food and beverage brands online
Beyond volume, another interesting discovery is that advertising triggers less word of mouth for beverages than other categories, making peer opinion more powerful:
- Traditional advertising triggers 47% of general brand WOM – this falls to 38% for beverage brands
And most impactful of all, it seems that beverages drive the sort of WOM that results in recommendation and purchase more than any category:
- 40% of brand recommendations contains appeal to buy or try product – this rises to 53% for beverages
- 49% of consumers say a brand recommendation drives them to buy – this rises to 62% for beverages
(Sources: StarCom MediaVest Group/CNET Networks and Keller Fay Group)
In the words of Brad Fay, co-founder of WOM research group Keller Fay:
“Word of mouth, in beverages, sees a very strong linkage to purchase, even more so than we see in other categories. That’s why we think it would be worth the industry thinking about how word of mouth can stimulate the brand. These are people in effect saying they’re going to run out and buy the product.”
Beverages are just one example, but it’s evident that word of mouth can be more, not less, influential for fast-moving, low-cost goods – and there are some great case studies of how FMCG companies are harnessing its potential.
Some of my favourites include Heineken, P&G, Coca-Cola and Starbucks. What are yours?
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
It’s a new month, so it’s time for a new theme here at 1000heads HQ. For March we’re going to be talking about all things FMCG. So where to start?
Having worked with a fair number of larger FMCG brands in the past, today I want to talk about corporations that manage large multi-brand portfolios. Should they be involved in social? What are the options? Who’s doing it already (and who isn’t) and of course, who’s doing it well?
Let’s say you’re Unilever.
You’ve got 40+ sub-brands (in the UK alone) operating under the Unilever banner, each executing their own marketing campaigns (with varying degrees of social media throughout) should you as a global umbrella brand, be embracing social media to help further your cause and message?
And if so, how do you go about employing that strategy without over-shadowing your sub-brands like Lynx/Axe or Dove.
In a word; yes, you should be embracing social media to further your cause – whether it’s highlighting the fantastic work that your sub-brands are doing across the world, finding new ways to humanise your corporate image or simply engaging with those showing an interest in your company culture – this is an easy win.
Keeping Unilever as the example for a second (and using the highly scientific method of typing ‘brandname on twitter’ into Google), you can see the following –
There they are, top three results all seem to be Unilever branded presences each pushing out their own necessary messages.
The number one result, Unilever Global Media.
Branded and official, the presence hasn’t tweeted since April 21st 2010. Up until that point, the stream is mainly made up of RTs of various Unilever stories and has little to no actual engagement with its 900+ followers. Now admittedly, the Unilever Press team do a good job here, but the global media presence is being severely overlooked.
Verdict?
Must try harder.
How to make it better?
Re-start the feed, get someone from the global media team (and who cares about social) behind it and start engaging with the community. From just a cursory look around their website, Unilever has some amazing stories to tell; both from an umbrella/global perspective and on a local/sub-brand level. Come out and tell us about them!
A brief interlude –
Before we go any further, we have to make one thing clear:
- TWITTER IS NOT THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF SOCIAL MEDIA –
However, it is a good litmus test on where a brand’s social strategy (if it has one) is at. From the Unilever perspective it seems like someone thought it might be a good idea to start a Twitter account and then has either let it die off or has been slapped down by corporate comms (this happens more regularly than we’d like to think).
Either way, something has been started here and it would be a shame to see it go amiss.
Moving on.
Looking elsewhere, to Diageo for example, the world’s leading premium drinks company has a top three ranking also -
Number one is @Diageo. Perfect, right? Wrong. But, before we get to that, let’s look at what comes in at number two – @boycottdiageo!
Even though they haven’t tweeted since 2009 AND the fact that their blog presence doesn’t seem to be linking through any more, this is isn’t exactly a great look for the Johnnie Walker brand owners.
Coming back to the top entry for a second, with a paltry 53 followers and zero activity to date, @Diageo is another wasted opportunity for another large umbrella brand. This time ’round mind there’s extra losses with the ‘Boycott Diageo’ name appearing at number two.
Verdict?
Potentially problematic (but easily solved)
How to make it better?
First, kick start the Diageo Twitter feed with a proactive ‘telling our story’ engagement strategy [linking to both corporate comms and any ongoing marketing efforts], as well as a super hot reactive strategy that not only nullifies any untruths being communicated about the company as a whole, but also has a keen eye out for potential long term advocates/new business.
Yes, B2B over Twitter. Amazing, I know.
Second, roll out departmental streams reflective of those that live front and centre at Diageo.com, i.e.: News & Media, Careers, CSR etc… The benefit here will be two fold: not only would it sharpen the messaging but it would also help push down that nasty (and dead) ‘boycott’ stream that currently lives in Google’s search rankings.
Let’s try one more –
@UnitedBiscuits are the manufacturer of biscuits, savoury snacks and crisps including McVitie’s, Penguin, go ahead!, Jacob’s, Twiglets, Hula Hoops, Mini Cheddars, McCoy’s, and KP. I know this because they have it in their bio.
Perfect! That’s a start guys…
In comparison to the other large multi-brand corps I’ve covered so far, United Biscuits actually seems quite active – their stream includes a healthy mix of Corp PR, HR shouts and the occasional customer care fix too.
Verdict?
A great foundation (now it’s time to build)
How to make it better?
The recommendation here would be to more clearly define the objective of this channel and then, once this is in place, amplify and engage accordingly with clear owners defined by industry-wide accepted standards.
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In conclusion –
OK, so I know the methods involved here aren’t the most scientific in the world and I also know that social media engagement is not judged on Twitter alone. We’ve kind of established that already.
However, if you’re asking yourself should multi-brand FMCG companies have their own online strategy? Then the answer has to be a clear YES.
Day in and day out these multi-national businesses face communications battles that have to be fought across many different fronts both online and off. Making sure that your social media channels are both owned and active is should be par for the course for the brands listed above and more. Be it PR & corp comms, CSR, HR & recruitment (grad schemes etc) or simply highlighting the latest and greatest sub-brand work.
This is one trick that you cannot afford to miss.
