image source: Wikipedia
With a name like Sullivan, count on me to kick things off with a case study from the Emerald Isle.
Founded in the 1950s, Tayto (a division of Largo Foods) is a top Irish crisp manufacturer (that’s potato chip to you, mate!) with the lovable Mr. Tayto as brand mascot. A veritable cultural icon, Mr. Tayto has his own autobiography and even made an appearance as a fake candidate in the 2007 Irish elections with a number of write in votes to his credit, no less. Needless to say, after more than 60 years on the market, it was time to spruce up Mr. Tayto’s image. Cue Ray Swan and the good people at McCann Erickson Dublin, Mindshare and Boondoggle, who came together to create a multichannel marketing and PR campaign that made mouths water:
Objectives:
- Develop a campaign that allows the audience to engage with the brand
- Make Mr. Tayto relevant again
Results:
- An increase in sales of nearly 1 million extra packets of Tayto crisps
- 90 000 hits on Bebo and Facebook
- Tayto regained the title of Number 1 crisp in Ireland
How did they do it? Check out this entertaining case study video posted by McCann on YouTube, as well as the campaign website and “Mr. Tayto – Guess who’s looking for love?” and “Mr Tayto – Clothes make the man” videos. You can also get campaign partner Mindshare’s take on the Tayto triumph through their own online case study.
For the curious among you, know that Tayto crisps come in the following mouth watering flavours: Cheese & Onion, Salt & Vinegar, Smokey Bacon, Ready Salted, Prawn Cocktail (!), and Tex Mex.
After you’ve … dare I say it … digested this case of Taytos, have fun watching this stand-up routine by Irish comedian Dara O’Briain and get a bit of a sense of what a cultural phenomenon the Tayto really is on the “udder” side of the pond.
Enjoy!
Michelle
Houlihan’s Restaurants, a chain that competes with the Appleby’s of the world, has taken a unique approach to marketing themselves online. Eschewing common advice to “go where the eyeballs are,” Houligan’s created a closed online community, letting it promote exclusive invitations to tasting events and other member-only events.
Backed by a 200,000-person email address list, the chain started by identifying its most active customers (those who participated in surveys, RSVPed to offers, etc.)
The chain’s community runs on the private-label Ning service. About 15 to 20 per cent are active members. “We gauge that by hits to the HQ site (when an e-mail is sent asking for feedback, to do a survey, etc),” Houligan’s digital marketing manager said.
Used to be, newspapers wanted to the one place people would go to see all the news — whether from your part of town to the other side of the world. But, in a world with 24/7 TV news, should newspapers continue to put its resources toward being all things to all people?
The Chicago Tribune is trying to counter that approach. It now offers readers 87 different hyper-localized editions, representing more than 100 communities in Chicago’s suburbs. Most of the content comes from readers themselves. This Triblocal.com project operates separately from the main newspaper. Revenue is generated from “reverse publishing” content from the web into 21 weekly newspapers that serve clusters of communities, each of which have its own web site.
The project experienced rapid growth in 2009, adding 11 newspapers from January to Oct. 1 of last year.
Read tthe full case study, including stats on monthly traffic and community members.
Carnival Cruise Lines thinks it’s pioneered the use of social media to build customer loyalty and satisfaction. Its campaign included launching a blog, a Twitter stream, Flickr photostreams, and a web site offering a virtual interactive tour, an online community/ social network offering photo/ story sharing, scrapblogging, trip planning, event organizing. The target audience was travel agents and new as well as existing customers. The results — more than one million hits on the web site and more than 20,000 online bookings Case Study
Novartis decided to adopt social media to generate awareness on CML Disease and launched a community site known as CML Earth. The site targets CML patients, health-care professionals, and patient groups. The site lets members connect with others near them. The results: More than 2,000 members, an unmatched resource for information on CML and a very active community willing to help CML patients anywhere in the world. Case Study
Allen & Overy decided to embrace social media as it’s well suited to environments such as law – constantly changing and requiring a large amount of information sharing. It started off with 3 pilot sites – each having combined blog and wiki. The results were astonishing and Allen & Overy now has nearly 30 sites for practice areas, new legislations etc. These sites make it easier for lawyers to answer questions and collaborate on cases. Social Media is also used for training events and for people to discuss the issues raised in such events Case Study
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Tod Maffin, COO and Senior Strategist at 