Stacy's Pita Chips (a Frito Lay brand) had a problem: a large, passionate group of fans (affluent women, age 35 - 45) had lost their connection with the brand. They had not been communicated with nor engaged in a meaningful way for quite some time. These fans wanted more from their favorite pita chip.
Stacy's wanted to re-engage this audience as well as attract new consumers to the brand. The team at Stacy's had invested a lot in new flavor profiles and product innovation and were ready to tell their story.
New leadership on the brand understood that, within this challenge, there was great opportunity:
• If Stacy's could engage and activate its fan base and, in the process, compel these Stacy's lovers to purchase one or two more bags per month, the lift in the business could be exponential
• If Stacy's could re-connect with their current fans in a meaningful way - and transform these fans into advocates who will share their love for Stacy's - these fans would be the brand's most effective (and cost-efficient) sales force
Stacy's is a small, independent brand in a large organization and, as such, needed our team to be innovative and scrappy in our approach. The team at Stacy's also knew that they would not increase their connection with their fans via traditional media alone.
So, what's a brand like Stacy's to do?
Our recommendation was to take the Facebook page that Stacy's had sub-optimized (but where many dormant fans still resided) and treat it as the brand's main, mass media channel.
Here's what happened next:
• Tested this proposition for 6 months to evaluate potential long-term results
• Developed a new creative concept for Stacy's based on a focused strategy that intersected the essence of the Stacy's brand (baking real pita bread into pita chips in a more painstaking, authentic way) with the kind of personal relationship that the brand's affluent, female target desires of brands. Thus, a new brand campaign - "Always, Stacy's" - was born
• Created a consistent brand look, feel, and voice executed to shine on social media and work across all other platforms
• Crafted "story themes" based on brand benefits and a deep knowledge of our target audience. These themes were tested in real-time and were modified or replaced with new themes based on performance
• Leveraged video as an element to drive engagement
• Deployed paid support behind posts that performed above benchmark for organic impressions
• Upgraded community management to ensure timely, on-brand responses to any inquiry or customer service request imaginable
• Optimized "path-to-purchase" by pushing out this social media-led campaign through print, promotional, and retail programs
• Measured campaign success against key performance indicators agreed upon before commencement of program. Here is each KPI and results after the first 6 months:
- Fan Acquisition 160% to goal (within first 3 days)
- Organic Impressions 670k
- Engagement by Target 91%
- Total Engagement 259k (likes/comments/shares)
- Unique Engaged Users 510k
- Brand Awareness +9 pts (per Nielsen)
- Brand Recommendation +5 pts (per Nielsen)
This approach proved, in just 6 months, that Facebook could serve as a "new mass media" channel for brands with defined challenges and the right target audience.
The biggest obstacle to success, assuming you have a relevant strategy and a true understanding of your audience, may be an unwillingness to commit to - and go "all in" on - a platform. This, as we've shown, can be mitigated by leveraging social media for one of its other key benefits: the ability to test a proposition with far less commitment of one's financial resources (and prestige) when compared to traditional mass media.
Are you ready to relaunch?