The sweet taste of social marketing success:
Our BzzCampaign for the new premium ChokaBlok ice cream generated a positive lift in sales and an outstanding ROI, greater than what is typically seen with other media channels. Here’s the story:
The Goal: Raise awareness and trial for a luxury ice cream
Everyone knows the best part of ice cream is the stuff that comes in it: the chocolate chips, the bits of cookie dough, fruit, peanut butter and all that comes in between. ChokaBlok, a new luxury ice cream brand being introduced by Tesco in the UK, included more “sauces and bits” than most competitors. But could it measure up to well-known brands like Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs?
Tesco knew the answer was yes: once customers tried it they would love it. So they needed to quickly build trial and awareness. They asked BzzAgent to help by designing a campaign to engage influential luxury ice cream buyers who would talk about Chokablok with their friends.
The Approach: Exclusive Experience and Product Trial
The BzzCampaign engaged 5,000 Tesco customers who regularly purchase luxury ice cream, but weren’t yet loyal to any particular brand. We also employed our “advocacy score” methodology to ensured these customers were influential – they had large social networks, regularly engaged with them, and could create a reaction from them.
After signing up for the campaign (all BzzAgent programs require customers to opt-in) each participant was sent a BzzKit including:
- One BzzGuide, explaining what makes ChokaBlok unique and who would want to hear about it
- One full-value coupon so the participant could try the product for free
- Five pass along coupons for £1 off
- An online code (£1 off) for participants to share online – good for up to 5k redemptions
The campaign featured a Matched Market Test analysis, so customers in select control markets were excluded. We measured campaign impact by monitoring campaign period changes in sales and shopping behavior and compared them to test markets. We then projected these to other exposed markets to determine program impact
The Results: High Trial, Broad Reach, and a Profitable Sales Lift
As expected, the ice cream was a hit with campaign participants, and they were happy to share their opinions with friends, family and colleagues. The campaign reached over 570,700 people with each participant influencing 114 people via in-person and online conversations. Most conversations focused on how delicious ChokaBlok is and how it’s packed with treats, sauce and bits.
The more people talked, the more good things happened for ChokaBlok. The campaign created significant positive shifts in key brand metrics, like likelihood to purchase, opinion and net promoter score (which increased 96 percentage points over the course of the campaign). The BzzCampaign also brought in more new buyers to the category, meaning that people who never purchased luxury ice cream before were now buying Chokablok.
But best of all was the impact on product sales. The Matched Market Test analysis revealed some fantastic results:
- A double digit % uplift for total brand sales
- A positive ROI
- 63% Coupon Redemption Rate
Clearly ChokaBlok and BzzAgent created a delicious recipe for social marketing success.