Rowse Honey / A very social telly campaign
Brief
Rowse is the UK’s best-selling honey, but most people haven’t heard of it (even a number of regular buyers claim not to). This leaves it vulnerable to private label substitution, particularly as the ongoing problem with hive colony loss causes wholesale prices to rise. So our assignment was to turn a household product into a household name – a beloved British staple, in the manner of Hovis or Walkers.
Strategy
Alongside agencies DHM, Sputnik PR and Zenith Media we took an integrated approach that was unlike anything else attempted before. The solution took its inspiration from the charmingly English culture of the company itself. It operates more like a close-knit family than a distant corporation and for its often long-serving employees, it really is ‘all about the honey’. So we decided to let their staff make the ads.
Activity
DHM worked with teams of staff at Rowse to help them create their own ads, each working from a different creative brief. The end result was six charmingly homemade ads, complete with wooden acting, shaky camera work and cheesy scripting. We raised awareness of the campaign through an influencer-led social media campaign, online advertising, PR and a telly ad voiced over by Alexander Armstrong. All media pointed consumers to our newly created Facebook page, with a bespoke voting experience which let people use 'Like' buttons to vote and then comment on their favourite ads. Using Facebook social technology, we also featured an enhanced voting experience on the Rowse website. To turn engagement into trial, we even gave away mini-jars of Rowse via a tab on our Facebook page, where consumers chose one of three types of honey in return for their contact information. The winning ad 'We're Rubbish At', which had received the most Facebook 'likes', aired during Coronation Street and made one team of staff at Rowse very happy honey makers!
Results
We attracted over 22,500 fans of the brand new Rowse Honey Facebook page, from a standing start in just 6 weeks. Moreover, the depth of engagement on our pages was extraordinary. Consumers not only 'liked' our ads, but 'liked' our page, opting in to future communications from Rowse. They professed their love of Rowse honey on our wall and even offered serving suggestions and recipes to fellow fans. 10,000 fans also ordered mini-jars to trial the product. We won praise from across the foodie and mums blog and twittersphere, even ranking 3rd in the Tots 100 UK Parenting Blogs, above Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, BBC and even Peppa Pig (poor Peppa).
Latest tweets
@erenfrey maybe! Please email careers@... With a cv and cover letter and tell us why we should. Good luck!
10:50 PM February 20th, 2012
Barclays Pingit (our app of the week) hits 20,000 downloads in 2 days. http://t.co/8Bt1uO5b
06:02 PM February 20th, 2012
@insidertrends Thanks! - here is our RSS feed http://t.co/0KHrIbku
10:29 AM February 20th, 2012
