Measurement company Symphony IRI published another case study on one of our BzzCampaigns. (They did this one last year.) This time around, they featured our Green Mountain Coffee project.
This is an excellent example of how targeting potential advocates based on a combination of actual purchase behaviors, demographics and social influence scoring is far more effective than targeting with demographics or social scoring alone. This product matters to these connected consumers and they generated a tremendous amount of personal advocacy for it with friends in person and online all over the social web.
How much? Enough to drive a 14.5% sales lift in the markets measured by SymphonyIRI’s matched market analysis. I’ll drink to that.
Here are the details of the case study:
The Challenge
Green Mountain Coffee, a leader in specialty coffee and Keurig K-Cup packs, is known for award-winning coffees, innovative brewing technologies, and socially responsible business practices. The brand’s line of Fair Trade certified coffees reflect this commitment – they are great tasting coffees that people can feel good about. Unfortunately, many consumers didn’t fully understand the meaning of Fair Trade certification and how good these coffees can taste.
Since personal recommendations are an important purchase driver for food and beverage products, the brand recognized that a social marketing program can expose the product to avid coffee drinkers so they can share their experiences with others in person and online across social media networks.
The brand team invested in a BzzAgent social marketing campaign as part of its integrated media plan to increase awareness and drive sales. With BzzAgent, Green Mountain was able to identify 10,000 coffee drinkers with the following characteristics:
- Active history of advocacy for coffee
- Shop at retail for bagged coffee and K-Cup portion packs
- Average age of 38
- High household incomes
- Live in areas where the product is readily available
Each of these coffee lovers received a Green Mountain BzzKit with an educational guide about the product and Fair Trade certification, full-sized samples of several flavors, and a pack of discount coupons for distributing to others. They also received guided activities online to encourage product discussions with friends and followers.
Product sales were a key success criteria for the brand and a proven analytics model was required to measure results. BzzAgent and SymphonyIRI Group collaborated to measure the sales impact of the campaign.
The SymphonyIRI Approach
SymphonyIRI conducted a Matched Market Analysis to isolate the campaign impact relative to other media. In collaboration with BzzAgent and the client team, SymphonyIRI selected analysis and control markets. The analysis markets included BzzCampaign participants and the brand’s other national media, while the control markets did not include a BzzAgent presence. By comparing analysis versus control and adjusting for the effects of non-test variables, SymphonyIRI could determine the relative sales impact of the program.
The Results
The participants in the advocacy program embraced the Fair Trade message. The number of advocates with an above average understanding of Fair Trade certification increased 61 percentage points as a result of the campaign. Advocates shared the message with more than 1.8 million coffee lovers through online and offline conversations.
SymphonyIRI determined that these conversations were very influential in informing purchase decisions. The Matched Market Analysis determined that the social marketing campaign generated a sales lift of 14.5% with a positive ROI.
Client Benefits
The brand used the results from the Matched Market Analysis to prove the value of its investment in social marketing and that peer recommendations effectively increased sales. Additionally, the brand understands the strength of the medium relative to its other marketing tactics and has a clearer view into how to build and execute a media plan to maximizes sales results.
