Pepsico says they’ve achieved a lift in response rates for digital campaigns by systematically focusing on customized and personalized experiences for the customer. That systematic focus on the customer is the result of leveraging a framework developed by digital interactive agency Rockfish.
Rich Blazevich, Senior Director of Marketing at Pepsico, spoke at D2 Digital Dialogue Conference in Cincinnati on Sept. 12 along with Colin McDowell, Associate Director at Rockfish. Blazevich said that one of Pepsico’s most successful and recognized campaigns -- the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign -- followed the framework.
“One of our most successful programs, Crash the Super Bowl, uses this digital framework,” Blazevich said.
The premise of Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign is that consumers vote online for their favorite consumer-created Doritos ad to air during the Super Bowl. The campaign is coordinated across all of Doritos social media platforms, YouTube, and mobile properties. Since its inception in 2007, Doritos’ consumer-created Super Bowl ads have consistently ranked among the top five spots in USA TODAY’s Ad Meter.
Blazevich explained that Doritos’ core customer is a Gen Y male, but before “Crash the Super Bowl” was conceived, the brand realized it lacked relevant content to connect to core customers. Doritos was confident that its chip’s bold flavors aligned with the segment’s love for indulgent and over-the-top experiences, and the brand saw an opportunity to activate its core customer to develop content.
“We said, ‘the Gen Y male is creative and intense, let’s let him create the content for the Super Bowl. You may think ‘Doritos, not that big of a deal’, but our brand identity is around the intensity,’’’ Blazevich said.
Rockfish is confident that the framework addresses a critical pain point of marketing in today’s digital age.
“The customer is in control of the signals that she tunes into or doesn’t tune into,” McDowell said. “It’s highly important to talk to the consumer in the way she wants you to. Remember, you are not alone in this. There are tons and tons of brands that are trying to capture consumer mind share. She will only tune into brand signals that she is most loyal to and that are most relevant to her.”
McDowell compared the framework to a signal tower, starting with Shopper at the base of the tower.
1 – Shopper
“One of the most important things to remember is that shopper data, at the bottom of the signal, is essentially what drives everything else that goes on with the campaign,” McDowell explained. “The first step is building a shopper profile.”
Knowing and understanding the shopper is critical for a solid foundation from which to build your campaign. Marketers should take all of the customer and shopper data, specifically personal attributes and interests, preferences, profiles, search history, purchase history, location and time of shopping, to truly understand the core customer. From that, build a detailed plan for how to activate that customer.
2 – Context
“Context is anything relevant to the shopper at that particular moment,” he explained. Essentially, context is “mapping back your campaign goals to something your shopper has told you she likes,” explained McDowell. Seasonality, brand positioning, and retail environment are all examples of context that may be tied back to shopper profiles. “For example, a back-to-school campaign is not going to be relevant to a person who has told you she doesn’t have children, and it then creates noise for that consumer.”
3 – Content
McDowell said, “creating content can be in the form of a lot of different things, but should always be layered onto the shopper profile and appropriate context.” He explained that it can take multiple forms, such as ratings and reviews, store information, pricing, and offers, but it’s critical that everyone who is creating messages for a single brand creates them in a similar fashion. “One of the pitfalls we’ve seen with brands is creating isolated departments sending different types of content out. What you don’t want is for the consumer to see content coming across as a patchwork of information. One unified voice, communicated in the way the consumer expects, is so much more powerful when it comes from one voice for one brand.”
4 – Seamless
It’s important to understand where and how the customer wants to receive communication from you and then deploy messaging accordingly. “Make it simple and easy to use,” encouraged McDowell. “If a consumer tells you she only wants to communicate with you via mobile messaging, then do that.” Communicating with customers via consistent channels is also important. For example, don’t communicate via email one day and mobile the next. Minimizing noise is the goal.
5 – Relationship
McDowell advises that consumers want to feel that a brand is “always there,” by actively listening to and talking to customers. “This can be done in a ton of ways,” he said, such as responding to customer reviews or engaging in conversations on Twitter, but the key thing to remember is that if you don’t respond, someone else likely will.
“Retailers’ goal is to deliver a signal that she will ultimately tune into, listen, and respond to. The goal is to absolutely respond to a consumer if she reaches out back to you in return. To achieve this you need a framework for delivering a seamless and personalized experience.
“I love this framework,” Blazevich concluded. “Had we used this framework when we first started doing digital 10 years ago, we probably would have had much better success with our digital programs.”