Ranked in the top ten brands, Cadbury made a name for itself by embracing a Facebook campaign initiated by Wispa fans to bring back the chocolate bar. Jerry Daykin, Cadbury’s Social Media provided some insight into the brand’s approach, and why it’s an essential part of the marketing mix.
Ranking: 7
Panel Score: 84
Data Score: 147
Social Brand Score: 231
1. What do you think makes yours a social brand?
We’re lucky enough to work with products which people genuinely love, and naturally talk about in their own social spaces. Right from the early days of Facebook, when Wispa lovers campaigned there for the bar’s return, we’ve been keen to engage with this natural conversations and provide fans with something in return for their support.
Being aware of the importance of these loyalists & advocates has ensured social media isn’t a silo or an afterthought, but a channel that’s considered throughout the marketing process throughout Kraft Foods. As well as continuing everyday conversations with our fans we’ve been able to give them unique experiences, such as the chance to be in our Spots v Stripes Race Season TV advert, or try out a new product before it hits the shelves.
2. Can you tell us a little about how social fits into your communications mix?
For us a great idea is one that works not just on TV or a poster but across a wide range of mediums – traditional media types remain crucial to our communications mix but digital & social channels are often where we can most engagingly bring an idea to life.
Through our social channels we’re able to cost effectively reach millions of consumers directly, not just with a new TV creative or poster, but with a way to be involved in it or tell the next chapter in the story. Our latest Wispa campaign for example will extoll the benefits of ‘Time well mis-spent’ through cinema and poster advertising, but on Facebook we’ll be bringing that to life by actively supporting & resourcing fans who come up with great ways to mis-spend their own time.
Social channels are also a key paid media opportunity, with significant reach, social context and an audience often quite ready to engage. Outside of Facebook we’ve seen phenomenal responses to the 5 Promoted Trends we’ve run on Twitter – giving consumers a gentle nudge and encouraging their natural willingness to talk with us do the rest.
3. What are you most proud of achieving in social media over the last year?
As sponsors of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games we’ve focused on giving people up and down the country the chance to experience some aspect of the Games first hand. Cadbury Dairy Milk’s Keep Team GB Pumped campaign aimed not only to give people a glimpse of the hard work Team GB athletes put into training behind the scenes, but also to give them a way of actively supporting & encouraging them.
We rerecorded six 80s power anthems by letting the public record their own vocals for the track on YouTube and mixing the end results together. The first track aired as a TV advert, and the others as part of our sponsorship of Glee, but we also heavily promoted them across social platforms. The process allowed us to take our fans both virtually & physically behind the scenes and also to directly connect with the athletes & ask them questions.
We’re also proud of our first Google+ Hangout was with Shanaze Reade, the BMX World Champion and star of our ‘Gold’ video. We’re hugely proud of our success on Google+, growing steadily from nothing to over 1.2 million followers in 6 months. We’ve shown that it definitely is possible to get strong engagement on the platform, if you’re able to provide varied, interesting & relevant content. We’ve run half a dozen Hangouts with our fans now which is a new way of personally communicating not possible through any other channel. Outside of the direct engagement we’ve seen quantifiable increases in our search rankings (driving a 7.5% increase in organic traffic to our site) and a 17% increase in click through rate simply by adding the G+ social context to our AdWord campaigns.
4. What’s changed for you over the last year in social media?
I think there’s been an accelerated shift in where and when people access social media – as both smartphone numbers & the level of social integration on them soar it’s truly becoming something people expect to be able to casually dip in and out of. It’s most visible when you see social apps, which don’t work on mobiles and the level of frustrated comments that inevitably follows – the user journey is completely broken for a consumer who expects to be able to engage on their own terms.
When developing social apps today we try to make ‘will it work on mobile?’ one of our first questions and where resources are limited we’ve even started to prioritise this over widespread backwards browser compatibility. If any of our Kraft Foods brands begins to assess a mobile strategy, I tell them that if they have an active social profile they’re mobile already.
5. What do you see changing over the next 12 months?
From a marketing perspective an ever-growing awareness that social isn’t just a check box, or a free way of getting extra reach, but an opportunity to do something incredibly creative together with your consumers. New technology such as Hangouts or platforms such as Instagram & Pinterest open up huge creative frontiers (and opportunities to bring ideas to life) so the challenge for us is working out exactly where to place finite resource.
With the understanding of what social is good for comes a better sense of where it doesn’t work so well – for instance, even with millions of followers cutting through at scale requires well planned media spend. Certainly social networks can work to virally amplify that investment but an over reliance on that effect is why some great social ideas never get the exposure they deserve.
Consumers are likely to continue to become increasingly platform or situation agnostic and to expect to be able to continue experiences from their desktops to their phones & tablets. Similarly the distinction between websites and social channels will continue to blur with more expectation for the latter to deliver traditional information and customer services. Even on social media networks themselves people are embracing multiple niche services to get the experience they want. For the forseeable future though, they’re most likely to continue to tie those profiles back into established services such as Facebook so that it remains manageable for them.
6. Any last thoughts?
It’s an honour to be nominated and short listed for the Social Brands 100 and ultimately we have our fans to thank for being up for talking with us and letting us into their personal spaces each day.
The results and report are available at www.socialbrands100.com. Join the conversation at #sb100.
