Archive for May, 2008

How to Bring Brand Recognition by Means of the Curiosity Factor

Posted on May 5, 2008. Filed under: Conversion, Interactive Media, Interchanges.com, Internet Marketing, Online Sales, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design | Tags: advertising, Brand Recognition, Caffe Latte, Emmi Caffe Latte, Marketing |

It’s easy to over-think a marketing campaign. A successful campaign does not have to be expensive, nor should it take years to plan.

Find out how thinking out of the box pays off…literally.

Challenge

Deciding on which marketing campaign to execute can be a daunting decision. Emmi felt the same decision weighing about the launch of the brand in the United States. How can we inform customers of the Emmi brand and how can we allow users to drive the content of our product? How can we generate curiosity around the Emmi brand name by means of a very simple marketing strategy – a strategy of planned curiosity? This is challenging task in a world of continual distractions. A billboard in Savannah, GA created by Titan, a local advertising group reads, “Tough times require fearless marketing.” This campaign proved that maxim true.

Campaign

Emmi is the second largest dairy producer in the world. In the Fall of 2007 a small team of marketers set out to promote Emmi Café Latte. In the competitive market of coffee and frozen lattes, changing customer loyal from one brand of coffee to another great poses a tremendous challenge. Consumers are creatures of habit. To ask someone to step out of their normal patterns is near impossible. Due to the immediate nature of the Emmi marketing request, there was no time or money for a long research project to gauge customer intent. Instead, the marketing team was asked to do the near impossible: steal customers!

How do you tempt a prospective customer to try something new…something outside of the box? It was decided that Emmi’s motto, “Keep you going when you’re on the go” would need a swift kick and a loud introduction.

Step #1: Come up with a hook: it will bring them back.

To set the stage, several vintage refrigerators, referred to as “coolers”, were strategically placed on the streets of Downtown Chicago. These coolers were painted by local artists using bright, funky colors with the question, “What’s in the cooler?” painted on the front. To add even more personality, the coolers were equipped with speakers. When a casual passerby crossed the path of a cooler, it mysteriously spoke to the consumers! The key was local actors were hired and hidden in nearby locations to gently prod the passersby.

“What’s in the cooler?” A question that is far from complex, but intriguing; intriguing enough to spark the interest of 15,000 plus Chicagoans last October. “What’s in the cooler” sparked curiosity and raised eyebrows. This question would soon grab the attention of college students, young professionals, families, and senior citizens as they walked the streets of Chicago.

Chicagoans played along heroically with the bit and added local color by responding to the talking cooler as it harassed the walking public. Eventually the curiosity factor of what was in the talking fridge out-weighed the folly of participating in a conversation with a highly decorated, antique refrigerator!

Video taped conversations between the cooler and the Chicagoan went something like this:

Fridge: “Hi, how are you today? I’m doing fine, you know, just a talking fridge.”

Participant: “Can I open you?”

Fridge: I’d rather not – we just met. You guys ever talked to a fridge before? I have a question to ask you. What’s in the cooler? What do you think is inside of me? I’m not ready to open. October 5th I’m going to open up.

Step #2: Market, market, and then market some more.

The following methods were used to market Emmi to the public:

MySpace blogging and advertisements

Text messaging/SMS

Press releases

YouTube

Traditional media is established, but why not use the fastest growing marketing machine available on the planet today? The Internet and social networks provide segmented markets that are interested in your product, all one must do is utilize it to your benefit.

Using MySpace, blogs, texting and videos Emmi was able to flood the Internet with their brand and, at a minimum, influence the market to “check them out.” The curiosity factor was intense. Emmi corporate was just as excited as the marketing community as the launch date approached; they had no idea what to expect for the unveiling.

Step #3: The Revealing of “What’s in the cooler?”

On October 5th, 2007, in Chicago’s upscale Lincoln Park, Emmi was ready to reveal its Café Latte product and show the world what exactly was in the cooler. Emmi’s marketing team prepared for less than 1,000 guests to attend this event. Emmi’s product was handed out at the event to any and all attendees. Hundreds of the frozen lattes “specially, carefully roasted and then made into espresso coffee” would be distributed. Café Latte Cappuccino, Macchiato, Light, and Choco Latte would be sampled after the revealing. Customers would experience the “Espresso + Milk = Drink Different” taste.

Results

The results were unexpected and much more exciting than Emmi could have ever predicted. A campaign of such simplicity and using curiosity (and as before little used marketing avenues) could prove a talking, painted cooler a genius? 15,000 people witnessed the Emmi Café Latte reveal and all just to ease their troubled minds.

Emmi was not prepared for such success, but is confident that the marketing efforts and success points towards what has been known to be called the “Google killer”… MySpace.

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