Patos is the fastest growing salty snack brand in Turkey and Kraft’s most sold product amongst Turkish consumers. Kraft wanted to take their efforts a step further and increase sales for this product amongst the Turkish youth by creating excitement and buzz about the brand. The strategy was to reach them directly and engage them through the channels that this mobile/web savvy demographic already used. The result was a comprehensive approach that involved traditional public relations techniques and a variety of advertising tactics to support an engaging and insightful digital marketing campaign.
How Did They Do It?
Kraft, in partnership with Vodafone and Mobilera, realized that the best way to increase sales was to let consumers interact with the brand. They did an excellent job in profiling their target audience and understanding the best ways to grab their attention and keep it.
The way to pull in consumers was easy. Patos bags came with a unique code inside that you could text from your Vodafone mobile device and redeem for 5 free minutes, or… you could accept a challenge. The amount of price minutes increased every time you accepted a challenge and won. Strategist for this campaign wanted not only engagement, but longer engagement time between consumers and the brand. They also knew that the way to take them further had to be within a single purchase or they could quickly lose their grasp of the audience.
Considering Vodafone is the second largest mobile phone provider in the country—with 25% of the market share—and also considering that Vodafone has identified young users as one of the fastest growing segments, this was the right partnership to target this audience. Since prepaid mobile plans are particularly popular in Europe, free minutes were a great incentive for consumers to participate. This dynamic maximized the campaign’s effectiveness because Kraft is an established organization partnering with Vodafone, which is an already trusted operator in Turkey.
But, it was not only about the mobile texting campaign. This campaign included a mobile game version of the challenge and a web version. All these supported by radio, TV, outdoor, point-of-purchase, web and mobile advertising and even buying keywords with Google AdWords to boost website traffic. Additionally, there was intensive public and media relations’ support through events around the concept of ‘Deal or No Deal?’ (such as trying to break the world record for people who fit in a Volkswagen, inspired by one of their TV commercials).
Because of the success of this campaign, Kraft has continued to use these marketing tactics to promote more of their products.
The Results
- 10 million unique codes were distributed and 3.5 million were used, this is a 35% response rate.
- Sales increased by 27% and market share by 1%.
- 238,000 downloads of mobile game.
- The number of Patos sold reached an all time high during the campaign.
- Created huge buzz in the industry. Campaign was nominated for multiple awards and won the Best Messaging Campaign Award of MMA (Mobile Marketing Association EMEA, 2009) and the Most Creative Campaign Award by Digital Age, Turkey 2010.
Why This Worked?
Kraft’s marketing team had a vision and they where able to tie it together sucessfully. They knew that mobile would easily engage their target audience but they chose not to make ‘just another tactic’. Their all-inclusive approach not only grabbed their consumer’s attention but also motivated them to take action (by participating in the game) because this campaign made it easy enough for the consumer to want to continue engaging. They also used the technology effectively and were creative with it, using their insights to develop the approach. Basically, they targeted the right audience with the right offer through the right channel. Not an easy task. Kudos!
