Staying authentic to your audience while growing a brand on social, in high-pressure situations, from the perspective of Chobani's vp of brand communications Josh Dean.
13. 13
OUR FOOD
PHILOSOPHY
We make products the right way:
• Authentic, unique recipe:
3 cups of milk
• More cultures
• Only natural ingredients
• No artificial growth hormones
14. 14
―We challenge the status quo,
because the status quo isn’t
good enough.‖
OUR BELIEF
25. APRIL 2014
REAL
We don’t use a food stylish or food photographer
in the majority of our social media. We think it is
inspiration to our audience to realize they can do
this too.
SHARE USER GENERATED CONTENT
Sometimes real imagery is even more shareable.
Our goal is to be aspirational, but approachable.
We are for everyone.
40. APRIL 2014
Greek yogurt is more
popular than ever and
now top brands are facing
off with major ad
campaigns. Both Chobani
and Dannon Oikos have
confirmed that they have
ads premiering during
February's Super Bowl—
an amazing fact
considering most game
day commercials are for
junk food and beer!
"We're America's
number one yogurt
brand, so why not be in
America's number one
event?"
-Peter McGuinness
40
THE ROAR WAS HEARD
42. APRIL 2014
42
THE YOGURT WARS
SOCIAL IMPRESSIONS:
CHOBANI 135M
OIKOS 52M
YOPLAIT 32 M
300 PIECES OF UNIQUE SOCIAL CONTENT
7X DAILY RT AVERAGE
15,000 BRAND MENTIONS
1,593 MEDIA PLACEMENTS
TAKE THAT, UNCLE JESSE
54. APRIL 2014
54
THE COLD WAR…CONTINUED
Re: the Russian LGBT Law
"It's disappointing that in 2014 this
is still an issue. We started Chobani
to provide better food for more
people, and our company has
always believed in diversity and
inclusion. We are against all laws
and practices that discriminate in
any way, whether it be where you
come from or who you love –
for that reason, we oppose Russia’s
anti-LGBT law.‖
– Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder & CEO
56. APRIL 2014
56
NATURALLY POWERING EVERYONE
Our best performing Facebook and Tweet… EVER
72 RT, 47 favorites
The Huffington Post article marked the
first time one Chobani social post made
National news.
71. APRIL 2014
71
60 SECOND DECISION CHECKLIST
1. WHAT CONTENT WOULD BE AUTHENTIC TO YOUR BRAND AND YOUR
AUDIENCE?
2. WHERE IS THE PRESSURE COMING FROM?
3. IS IT THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITY?
4. HOW CAN YOU ZIG WHILE EVERONE ELSE ZAGS?
72. A CUP OF YOGURT
WON’T CHANGE THE
WORLD, BUT HOW WE
MAKE IT MIGHT…
72
Hello everyone. Very excited to be here. So why am I standing in front of you today? Well as you all have heard The social spaces is really dynamic, so much stuff, more challenges than ever.
The question we ask ourselves every day – WHO CARES? It’s hard to be relevant in this crowded space.Content needs to be engaging, useful, relevant, entertaining.
And it’s So Crowded….So many Tweets…..Users…..Posts…..
And it’s So Crowded….So many Tweets…..Users…..Posts…..
And it’s So Crowded….So many Tweets…..Users…..Posts…..
It’s overload for our short attention spans – it’s enough for a like – less than 8 seconds?
And with every changing algorithms and new platforms – there is no blue print. There is so much going on and no time to think
So today, I’d like to take you through the journey we've been on in the past few months at Chobani and what we learnt about ourselves and how we grew our social presence in 3 big events in the space of a month. How we stayed authentic to our audience whilst growing the brand on social. How we fed our feed.
We do things the right way
And through this belief, we created an amazing product….. Which people loved – and created an AMAZING community in social
Listening - giving them what they want & product love sometime it’s product, but it’s really leaning into the conversation versus pushing out marketing. We had a two-way conversation, versus just pushing out content.
going beyond the product it and elevating the conversation. Providing useful, interesting content. Being relevant
Foodform
$1bn in less than 5 years and did this with only
35 unaided awareness
Well we had 3 rather small events. Superbowl, Olympics and Oscars. But how do you do those 3 tentpoles in a way that felts relevant an authentic to who you are as a brand, on social? Well here’s what we did
So as you can tell from my accent I’m not from the US but even us brits know that there’s no bigger stage to launch your brand than at the Superbowl. But the pressure got even bigger for us as the Superbowl became the start of the ..drum roll..
YOGURT WARS Yes - we had awoken some rather large giants who weren’t very happy with us. So the Yogurt wars had begun and we unleashed a discerning bear who was on a mission to find real food (maybe show ad)
In social we wanted to lean into the bear and play this the right way. In a relevant way for the event (super bowl) - covering super bowl, more pieces of content
We found our brand advocates and gave them custom content — a LOT of the content (300 unique pieces). We started with our most loyal fans and then
And we played with brands too (pics of the brand tweets).
We played with the big boys but we didn't really have deep pockets. And our ROAR was heard.
So take that Uncle Jesse - we won the yogurt war, or the first battle at least :)
We trended on twitter, we won the conversation and we delighted our existing and some new fans
So from the yogurt wars we moved onto the slopes and our sponsorship of the Winter Olympics.
We had a very authentic story to tell about our brand, not only were we sponsoring 6 athletes, but they all eat Chobani as part of their training. Unique angle in and we produced a ton of planned content – we planned for moments we knew were going to happen
We also planned to ship Chobani to Sochi so they could have while competing.
Our shipment planned to Russia got blocked and it became an overnight story all over the networks. The yogurt war became the Cold War and our own CMO was quoted in the times .The world had gone crazy, if you’d have told me when I started that Chobani would be involved in a diplomatic crisis I think it would have been a joke
#freechobani was all over the twitterspehere Everyone was telling us that we we’re sitting on a social gold mine.
Even the senator got involved The world had gone crazy, if you’d have told me when I started that Chobani would be involved in a diplomatic crisis I think it would have been a joke
Everyone was telling us that we we’re sitting on a social gold mine.
Even our friends at DIGIDAY – ARE YOU MISSING OUTWhat are you doing, you're leading team, PR, advertising/social agency, etc. it didn't feel right. We didn't want to be seen to be opportunistic and our fans would have been disappointed in us. This is the point where, for us senior marketers, you really have to lean into your social team, the people who interact with and understand your fans better than anyone else. Because they know what’s right. Really understand what value we would get out of it….we didn’t see it. We wanted to find the right way of telling OUR authentic story
Luckily Russia has more drama for us – their anti LGBT stance. There was nothing more authentic than what our founder believed . That no matter who you were, what color your skin or who you loved people should always be treated with respect and equality. We were only 1 of 3 brands that publically opposed the LGBT law
Then we tweeted this. naturally powering tweet
It was the perfect summation of what we believed and really leaned into the conversation.
People recognized that. Both the industry
and the fans.
Recap slide – So far we talked about not being afraid to go big, always going back to your audience and not being afraid to wait for the right opportunity
Lets move onto the final act of our story, The Oscars
The stage was SET and the lights were up and the red carpet was out for lots of content (think im done with the analogies) – we went into this knowing we had a powerful story to tell around how food is made and we were launching our 100 Calorie yogurt made with only natural ingredients. And we had a LOT of content ready And like many brands we also DID prepare to lean into the Oscars
Yes – we had the best sound mix to yogurt and granola We’d prepared for manufactured serendipityAs always, we were really paying attention to audience reaction before, during, and after.
We quickly realized how some of the real time marketing was falling flat.. There’s a fine line between relevant and cheesyIt was at this point that we shouldn’t push out a bunch of content – rather it would have been more impactful to do a few powerful pieces.
We only ended up posting a few key things. We zagged where others zigged and stayed true to ourselves and what we believed in. Authenticity
Sometime less is more Got credit for such – including digiday ;)
Recap slide – So far we talked about not being afraid to go big, always going back to your audience and not being afraid to wait for the right opportunity
BE AUTHENTIC TO YOUR CORE AUDIENCE DON’T BOW TO PRESSURERECOGNIZE THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITIES LESS CAN BE MORE