1. Brands, Content & the Moment of Truth | The Agile Approach to Unlock Brand Growth

2. @jcuene
Business nerd
Culture nerd ”
Digital nerd
American Studies
≠ MBA
@thewaltwhitman

3. “Truth” Unlocks Growth
? $ 
Right Right Consumer Marketer
insight Creative Moment Moment
Message of Truth of Truth
We need a way to get there faster
12 Months
8

4. Marketer Consumers

8. There once was a
company of
champions….

9. The Archetype
The farmer's
industry calls him ”
to till the
soil, from which he
receives God's
special blessings
Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia”

10. Agrarian Roots
Rational
Gritty
Annual Cycles
Conservative
Legacy

11. Modern
Global
State of the Art
Performance
Growth

15. We
Thought:
Digital Marketing =
New tools, old problems
We Brand Building in a Networked World
Realized:
New approach, new opportunities

16. A very different family unit

21. The Archetype

22. hacker
“The word `hacker' has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed
in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just
means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be
done….
The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous
improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be
better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it – often in
the face of people who say it's impossible or are content with the status quo…
Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing
and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all
at once.
Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of
debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build
something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what
works. Mark Zuckerberg – letter to investors

23. hack
Build something
See if works
Make it better, then bigger
Repeat again and again
Done is better than perfect.
Make more interaction
Keep shipping

24. Silicon Valley’s Marketer of the Future
24

25. Agile Brand Building
Individuals and Intuition over process
In-Market Results over opinion
Hacking the Consumer Response over consensus
Modern Brand
Responding to Change over following plan
Results over decks
Content = Code = Truth
Keep “Shipping” Content 25

26. Case Study:
Reese’s Puffs
•How to take a classic brand and
modernize to jumpstart
growth?
Moment of truth: Will
consumers respond?

27. Since 1923 Reese’s
has made a flavor
mashup worth talking
about
Chocolate +
Peanutbutter =
Awesome

28. But we didn’t stop
there, we mashed it up
with breakfast
Chocolate + Peanutbutter + Breakfast
= AWESOMER
This idea helped us hone in on the
purpose of the brand.

29. Reese’s Puffs Core Purpose:
To bring awesome things together to make
them awesomer
Since Reese’s Puffs are the ultimate combination, we
want to work together with our fans to create even more
perfect mashups.

30. Reese’s Puffs were already being mashed-up in culture
Memes/mashups are a sharable and authentic territory.

31. Connected to Today’s Creativity / Creative
Culture Take it One Step Further / Expression &
Pushing Further Experiences
Three territories became the launchpad for new content
deas than limiting the areas Reese’s Puffs could play in, pursuits inspire new
Rather
ways of thinking about the brand.Unlock new places for consumers and brand to
connect.

32. • User
Content
Branded
Content • Impressions
We plotted out
a digital
ecosystem to
support our
efforts • User Content Branded
• Impressions Content
BRANDED
It was designed to
distribute our content and CONTENT
fuel Reese’s Puffs’ Always- HUB
On engine.
• Branded Content • Branded Content
• User Content • Community Learnings
Impressions
SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS PAID MEDIA CHANNELS

33. facebook.com/reesespuffs reesespuffscereal.tumblr.com youtube.com/reesespuffscereal
Reese’s Puffs digital ecosystem
Facebook was the primary driver. The page gained >160k fans in 3 months with minimal paid acquisition
and had stellar levels of engagement when we were most active. The most sharable content was
brought to Tumblr and original videos were posted to a branded YouTube channel.

34. Content was executed quickly and put into market to learn
We’ve shared memes and mashups; created new Reese’s Puffs-inspired memes; offered Teen friendly
recipes and shared interviews with mashup and meme creators.

37. 1,391 LIKES 65 COMMENTS 311 SHARES 480 LIKES 33 COMMENTS 67 SHARES 520 LIKES 31 COMMENTS 65 SHARES
Image Macros – Clever Found content – Sourced from and Co-created content – Photo
headlines with simple images. attributed to users and meme mashups, caption contests, polls
sites. Attribution is extremely etc.
important.
Best performing content and themes

38. Mass market
We paired
targeted-
mass “Paid”
with “Always Advertising
On” Realistically relevant
~200MM imp
Facebook Ads,
Timing: May-Sept 10 Social/Viral Reach
11.3MM impressions Promotions Tumblr Ads
, Banner Ads,
2012
Current users
Always-On Users:
153,400
Facebook fans: 152,000
Tumblr followers: 1,400
Buy rate Repeat Penetration
Digital, precision/ buy rate Traditional , awareness/trial

39. 1 organic impression 2.3 viral impressions We’ve added almost 70K new fans since
stopping advertising on 8/18
Content sharing 10X higher than Brand X Organic fan growth 4X higher than Brand X
Strong content made our impact even greater
Our content was shared broadly expanding our reach by over 2X and organic fan growth
was around 1K new fans per day.

40. It worked!
+2.0MM
We gained Est. Yearly
Organic/Viral Impressions
invaluable (from new fans)
insights and
+34MM
drove real Est. Yearly
Organic/Viral Impressions
results
• Better than average ROI on
ads
• Low paid CPM, even lower
effective CPM 11.3MM
Organic/Viral Impressions
• Less than the production
cost of a typical TV spot
• Less than the time it takes to
plan a typical campaign
>200K
Facebook Fans

41. Agile Brands, Bold
Leaders
Hard leadership lessons being learned daily:
• It’s a culture change, not a process change
• Small, dedicated team
• Execution is hard
• Constraints / under resourced
Unlocking Growth via Content
• Content == interaction == Truth
• Iteration > Perfection
Keep shipping (content)!

42. Jim Cuene
Jim.cuene@genmills.com
@jcuene