Marketers tap into power of Facebook
HOW emotional do you get about products? Do tears well up on thinking of Griffin’s Choco-ades, McDonald’s Chick ‘n’ McCheese burger or the lengthening Marmite shortage? If so, you’re not alone. Thousands of Facebook fans sign up daily to fan pages which aim to place pressure on companies to do their customers’ bidding.
Some companies ignore the social media chatter, some fold and give the hordes exactly what they want, and some see a new media marketing opportunity.
Visiting Australian social media consultant Mark Parker says harnessing the existing consumer passion around a product or brand is one of the smartest and most efficient strategies a modern company can use.
Directly handling customer requests by bringing back an “old favourite” product is one tactic that has become more commonplace.
Griffin’s Foods marketing director Josette Prince said her company’s re-release of 1980s-era Chocoade biscuits recently was a huge hit with the public – selling 300,000 packets in one week.
But she says it was not an idea initiated by Griffin’s. It came from Upper Hutt mother Amber Johnson, 35, after her husband asked her to find his favourite childhood biscuit.
Ms Johnson started a Facebook page that quickly attracted a groundswell of support for the return of Chocoades and was soon noticed by Griffin’s.
Ms Prince said Griffin’s “watched from the sidelines” as Ms Johnson’s Facebook campaign grew.
“Clearly she really loved it, but commercially you have to assess how much of a following would it have.”
The company held a public vote, saw the reaction, and based on that alone without any other market research, it went ahead and began producing the product again.
A press statement emerged on July 8 with huge take-up from traditional media which catapulted Griffin’s NZ into the ranks of the Top 10 most-talked-about New Zealand Facebook pages of the week, joining such pages as those for Sir Peter Jackson, the All Blacks, 100% Pure New Zealand, Domino’s Pizza and The Rock radio station at the top of the charts.
It was fuelled by what Ms Prince said was unexpected mainstream media uptake: Ms Johnson’s story featured on Breakfast and Campbell Live, in newspapers, on websites and was the subject of radio interviews and product giveaways throughout the country.
Comedy show 7 Days even had a crack.
Such a product rebirth is not unheard of.
Early last year fast-food giant McDonald’s asked its Facebook followers what food they most wanted to see back on the menu and ended up adding its Chick’n McCheese burger as a permanent option.
Steinlager issued old-style white “stubbie” cans in honour of the All Blacks’ World Cup campaign last year and arguably outshone official Cup sponsor Heineken in the local market.
Sanitarium went the other way and grabbed valuable social media chatter and mainstream media coverage by taking its Marmite brand off the shelves.
The product shortage, made unavoidable by damage inflicted during Christchurch’s earthquakes, was flipped into a positive for the brand by harnessing the nostalgia that exists for established products. DDB Group advertising agency’s executive creative director Andy Fackrell said it was the viral appeal of the story that provoked the response, and nostalgia was a huge driving emotion in spreading information online.
His agency devised the Steinlager “white can” campaign which he said sold 4.5 million cans in seven weeks.
“We naturally look on the past as being better than the present . . . these feelings of nostalgia get transferred to the product; it’s like being reacquainted with a long forgotten friend.
“There’s a subtle but vital difference between history and nostalgia. One is fact, the other is feeling. If you’re going to revive a discontinued brand or product then make sure it’s one that has genuine emotional significance for the target.”
As for giving consumers “control” of how a brand or product was communicated across both the new and old media, Ms Prince said that was a given in this day and age.
Digital marketer Michael Carney of SocialMedia.org.nz said such a campaign had to be organic, authentic and have resonance with an audience for it to grow.
“Marketers may provide the tinder, but whether the flames flare up or sputter out depends on the people.”
The flames might also be dulled by any hint of over-commercialisation or bad timing. Mr Carney said traditional TV ads were a good complement for social media campaigns “provided that the social media component happens first, before the paid campaign starts”.
“No one wants to talk something that’s old news’’.
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