It was a night to remember. Not only was there a full house and our usual generous spread of pizza and beer, speakers from Danone (mmm), Lavazza and PepsiCo spilled their social beans at We Are Social’s second ever FMCG summit. The audience was so excited that their tweets made the event the no.2 trending topic of the evening – but if you were washing your hair, dry those eyes. Not only did we record the whole thing for our Facebook Live stream, and interview our speakers in the video below – we’ve captured our top four lessons right here, just for you.
1. Consumers will always follow the path of least resistance
We Are Social’s innovator in chief Tom Ollerton explained that with the rise of new, voice-activated technology like Amazon Alexa, even more opportunities are opening up to make life simpler and easier for consumers. Why would a shopper bother to look for the right washing powder when they could ask Alexa to find the cheapest on offer and add it straight to their basket without even looking at a screen? FMCG brands, and retailers, now have to be faster than ever to ensure they don’t get left behind in the great convenience race.
2. Getting it right sometimes means keeping it simple
Lucinda Brett, UK Head of Marketing at Lavazza Coffee explained how her brand balances keeping things simple with being ahead of the pack. It’s that approach that got the brand into space, into pasta and even into selfie prints. It was this approach that led to its coffee selfie campaign at this year’s Wimbledon Championships, where fans in the infamous queue could have their faces printed directly onto their coffee cups. This was a first for coffee, but still a tremendously simple idea and one that secured the brand it’s best ever social results for the championships.
3. Don’t forget your target’s passion points
Hugh Ayling, brand manager at Danone knows all about premium. After all, he’s been working on natural mineral water brand evian for the last few years and knows its upmarket target audience extremely well. He talked about how the brand found the right campaign for its sponsorship of Wimbledon – starting by combining insights about the event and the brand’s target audience to find a common interest. The resulting digital campaign – Wimblewatch – was supported across PR, social media and above the line advertising, pulled in heaps of award nominations as well as 12m views – a big win for such a little bottle.
4. Don’t be afraid of a little debate
Ian Maybank, digital marketing lead at Walkers explained how the brand used the variety of sandwich tastes across the country to kick off the brand’s ‘Barmy for a Sarny’ campaign. By focusing on preferences that differed up and down the country, the brand was able to spark interest and debate about its new range of sandwich themed crisp flavours. Using a combination of social and traditional media, the brand was then able to develop a deeply engaging campaign which generated strong results – definitely something worth chewing on.
Are you gnashing your teeth in frustration to have missed such an awesome lineup? Never fear, we have even more insightful events planned – and they’re all free! Just check out our events page for the latest details.
