Don’t come between a Canadian and their chocolate bar. Turns out that Canucks are loathe to share chocolate of any kind.
Those were the troubling findings facing Mondelez as they introduced a new sub-brand of the Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar designed with sharing in mind. Called Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations, it’s a large rectangle-shaped bar composed of chunks of chocolate that can be snapped off by friends riding the bus or watching a movie.
The company needed a way to reach its target of moms 25 to 54 and drive home the idea that the bar is fun to share, as well asshow off the “personality” of the treat’s unusual flavours, which include “banana caramel crisp” and “jelly popping candy.”
Research showed that the product is “category expanding,” says Deborah Lucas, senior brand manager Mondelez International, with families adding it to their snack mix during family nights, for instance.
“The idea was not to just come in and steal share but augment the chocolate category,” she says.
And Mondelez chose to target consumers through Facebook video, marking the first time the brand, with media AOR Starcom Mediavest Group, creative shop Ogilvy and Facebook’s own Creative Shop, created a video specifically for the platform’s news feed.
Armed with the fact that more than half of Canadian Facebook users watch at least one video per day on the platform and the knowledge that moms are active users of the site, the brand created three 15-second spots demonstrating fun (though highly improbable) ways to break up the bar – such as whacking it with a piñata stick, delivering a karate chop or attaching it to bowling pins to strike with a bowling ball.
The brand used Facebook’s reach and frequency tools to not only target its buy over a 28-day cycle but also set the number of times one user will be served the same ad.
“This was a specific tool to make sure we got a lot of targeted views,” Lucas says. “We wanted a way to get on people’s newsfeeds and in a way that people would think it’s fun and engaging, so they would stop and watch it.”
The three pieces of creative, which went live on Nov. 13, 19 and Dec. 1, have been viewed more than 50,000 times, liked more than 3,500 times and shared 230 times. Analysis of impressions from a three-day period in late November showed that 96% of those impressions were on mobile.
“It was the perfect combination of having a proper Facebook media buy and pairing it with engaging content,” Lucas says. “I think the two need to be done so you are not just on someone’s news feed, but you are doing something that is helpful, relevant or enjoyable.
“We went for enjoyable fun, pairing that with trying to get the message across on how this product can be consumed,” he adds.
While she wouldn’t reveal specific details, Lucas says a second wave of the campaign with Facebook will go live mid-March. Mondelez has committed to shifting 10% of its budget to online video this year as it moves to a goal of spending half of its budget on digital by 2016.
This Facebook campaign was supported with traditional media, including 15- and 30-second spots on specialty and conventional TV stations around female-targed shows like Madam Secretary and Once Upon a Time on CTV, as well as an in-store campaign and blogger outreach.
Mondelez is one of a number of companies increasing their emphasis on Facebook video. For instance, during Black Friday and Cyber Monday last month, Sport Chek chose not to run TV ads and instead worked with creative agency BBDO to produce 50 targeted holiday video spots for Facebook news feed. The videos reached 3.5 million Canadians and according to Facebook, Black Friday offers promoted via Facebook video had 57% higher sales than ones that were not featured.
