This was a group assignment for the module CS2088 The Content Lab For Community Management, involving a one-week long takeover of Udders Ice Cream's Facebook and Instagram accounts from 3 April to 9 April 2017. Other than content creation, it includes the usage Facebook Advert Manager to boost (within $200 budget) and analyse the impressions, reach and engagement that the posts received.
The brief
Task: Create a multi-platform, multi-media content marketing campaign for Udders that focuses on one of the outlets. We decided to focus on Timbre+.
Target Audience: 18 to 40 years old
Unique Selling Points: Unique flavours, Quirky concept
Opportunity: More lifestyle posts
Challenges: Inconsistent engagement; one way flow of communication
Threat: Indifference
The outlet at Timbre+ was new, but that made it even more exciting to work on. As it is located in one-north, it is in the vicinity of numerous offices. In the day, it is like a bustling hawker place selling local delights. At night, those stores close and more restaurant-class stores open while live band music fills up the area.
In the initial stage of the project, we wanted to gather insights about the people who dine at Timbre+. Knowing how Timbre+ is different in the day and night, we went on two occasions to conduct a survey to better understand their visiting habits and awareness of the Udders Ice Cream store there.
One interesting insight discovered was that people at Timbre+ in the day and night visit the place for different motivations. Those visiting in the day see the place solely as an option for their lunch during work, and hence would less likely visit at night again since they would leave the area straight after work to elsewhere. Those visiting at night went for the food and life band instead.
objective & strategy
With this finding, what we want to do is to bring those who visit in the day to go Timbre+ at night, vice versa. After speaking to more people on-the-ground and considering the duration of our team's social media takeover, we realised that our objective should not be one that involves direct behaviour change as it is unrealistic to do so within a week. Behaviour is always the hardest to change and requires a much longer duration and exposure.
Therefore, we EMBRACED the differences between the two and formed the below objective, strategy and our big idea that ties the whole campaign together.
objective
To brand Udders at Timbre+ as the outlet with dual sides.
strategy
by engaging and entertaining our audience on our online and offline platforms.
Search #TasteTheUdderSide on Instagram and Facebook for our posts!
We created a cinemagraph to show that they can enjoy ice cream from Udders @ Timbre+ both day and night, with the night one featuring Udders' genie lamp sundae which was exclusive to the Timbre+ outlet, accompanied by a pint of beer (not from Udders, though they do sell alcoholic flavours).
Udders is well-known for their unique flavours, particularly the alcohol-flavoured ones. The 20 flavours (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic ones) available were categorised into day and night in a post to showcase the duality of Udders @ Timbre+ and used to tie in with an upcoming contest.
When I first visited Udders, it was for a marketing project in polytechnic and I immediately fell in love with the quirkiness of the brand! I felt that the ambience of the store was cleverly designed and the ice creams were cleverly named. Never would I have thought that I could really work with the brand for real in university!
As a team, we all understood the importance of maintaining the quirkiness of the brand and hence, for the contest we held, we created a bizarre yet on-brand video by throwing several ingredients together to Beethoven's 5th Symphony. The fun video encourages the target audience to suggest the craziest flavour pairings possible and name their creation. Watch (with audio) and read the submissions in the comments: https://www.facebook.com/uddersicecream/videos/10154679113549822/
As with every online contest, one post alone may not be sufficient - a reminder post would be helpful in getting more people to join. Using photos of the ice creams, I created a contest reminder post that provides examples on how they can pair ice creams together. On Facebook, it was a fast-moving GIF that could be paused to make the content more interactive. As videos cannot be paused on Instagram, the photos of the pairings moved more slowly. The Facebook GIF was then found to be used by a Chinese blog promoting ice cream stores in Singapore: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/EHIDeUSwYQXt1Kwwnj5Ttg? (bottom of page).
Our initial plan was to make a simple post to announce the contest winner:
But we realised that with such creative submissions, it would be a waste to not jump on the opportunity to create a real-time video to make the winning entry come to life.
Out of all 148 submissions, our favourite was the pairing of 'Hazel's Nuts' with 'Cereal Killer', which the winner named Run Hazel Run - Cereal Killer going after Hazel's Nuts. The idea was conceptualised into the video above by literally having a killer holding a knife with a cereal box head chasing Hazel for her nuts.
There are few ways we merged online and offline together:
Firstly, as #TheUdderSide emphasises on the dual sides Timbre+ and the ice cream flavours at Udders, Ms. Wong Peck Lin, the lady boss of Udders, was kind enough to offer a 10% off double scoop promotion at exclusively at Timbre+ during our campaign week.
Secondly, we put the pairing suggestions from the online contest to test. 10 pairings, including the winning entry 'Run Hazel Run', were taste-tested at Timbre+ on the Friday of the week - on the stage at Timbre+ in the day and among the audience at night. We challenged people to try both flavours together and guess what they are by showing them the image of the 20 flavours. Those who guessed the flavours correctly would be awarded with a $5 Udders Ice Cream voucher.
Cards with names of the pairings from online contest
Taste test samples
We then shared the photos and videos taken during the event on Facebook and Instagram:
Post-event video
Some post-event photos
Below is an overview of IG posts with #TheUdderSide:
analysis
As some of the information should remain confidential, I will not go into detail of the specifics e.g. target audience interests used on Facebook Ad Manager, but a broader overview on the effectiveness of the campaign and the lessons learnt.
In this campaign, we received:
The big idea was the duality of Udders @ Timbre+, the contest video was the tactical execution that gained the most traction with the highest engagement, comments, likes and shares. We figured it would a good idea to expand on it through offline activities.
There was a really steep learning curve throughout the campaign - from planning the posts, the visuals, copy to the actual takeover week.
We learned the importance of:
129 likes
within a week
Highest no. of comments (137) in a single day since Jan 2017
Experimentation
with different audiences, boosting objective (video view vs engagement) on Facebook Advert Manager - to find out the best for each post - split testing, allow breathing time to garner organic reach
Timeliness
we have to be reactive → e.g. hazel post, we made use of user-generated comments to in turn, create an engaging & entertaining video the next day.
Flexibility
social media is very unpredictable. Things don’t always happen the way we plan it to be. Even after we finished planning and scheduling a week's worth of posts, we do not simply just leave it there to be posted. The analytics should be constantly be checked and if a certain post is doing well, we should see it as an opportunity and spend more $ to boost the popular content and make it even more popular instead of sticking to a fixed budget for each post.
Relevance
1. to the consumers - boosted at timings when they are most active on social media e.g. during lunch/dinner so will see post after eating since is dessert
2. to the client brief - in terms of TA, brand personality (narrower audience instead of a broad one, more specific, reached younger audience in line with client's KPI. once maximised reach to younger audience, widened target audience.)
We do not have data on whether our campaign directly caused sales increase at Udders @ Timbre+.
Thus, we measured campaign effectiveness based on whether we managed to reach out to the client’s intended TA, which is youths between 18 to 40 years old. Judging from the run hazel run contest winner post, we did target a narrower age group as compared to the other groups in previous weeks.
The second way we measure campaign effectiveness is based on whether the contest successfully showed Udders’ offerings and at the same time portray their quirky personality, which we think we did. Our smashing combinations did receive many comments that were witty and based on the unique flavours at Udders @ Timbre+.
We should constantly be learning throughout the campaign because every post we make, we learn something.
Why this post is doing well? Why is it not? What can or could have been done to make this post better? These are points every campaigner have to think about during and after the campaign.
Grade received: At least A-
