Objectives

After decades of a slow but steady decline in milk consumption, published research identified chocolate milk as an effective beverage for helping active adults recover after strenuous exercise. Recognizing this as an opportunity to engage lapsed milk drinkers, drive incremental sales of flavored milk and reposition chocolate milk from a kid's beverage to a serious recovery beverage, we partnered with United States Women's National Soccer Team forward, and now FIFA Women's World Cup champion, Kelley O'Hara. The Olympic soccer gold medalist starred in a BUILT WITH CHOCOLATE MILK campaign focused around online videos and real-time social media conversations leading up to, during, and after the FIFA Women's World Cup. The program showcased how elite athletes recover with chocolate milk in a way that was authentic, educational and motivating to everyday exercisers.

Objectives:

• Increase awareness of chocolate milk's post-exercise recovery benefits among exercisers, expanding our influence beyond the endurance sports, which had been our focus for the past two years.
• Improve perceptions of chocolate milk as a serious post-exercise recovery beverage.
• Drive athlete-to-athlete advocacy around chocolate milk's recovery benefits.
• Drive demand, consumption and sales of chocolate milk by increasing the number of exercisers who drink it post-workout.

Strategy and Execution

Aside from our target of "Connected Competitors" (who live a fitness lifestyle on a daily basis which includes a variety of workouts), research suggested that "Get In Shape Girls" (generally out-of-shape women who have made the decision to exercise more, but are struggling to break their former habits) offer a considerable volume opportunity for chocolate milk. Therefore, we knew our messaging had to resonate with this group without turning away the core. Kelley O'Hara, a strong female figure in mainstream sports, was an ideal spokesperson to reach a broad audience of adult exercisers that our campaign had not reached before.

Strategy

• Developed a pre-launch plan to engage soccer fans by sharing relevant soccer content on our social channels, shifting our focus to the sport, tapping into the Women's World Cup conversation and posting teaser content hinting at the newest athlete in the BUILT WITH CHOCOLATE MILK campaign
• Built partnerships with soccer influencers, such as Soccer Problems, Total Soccer Show and Women's Sports Network 24/7, by sharing short-form teaser videos and social content to spread awareness of the Kelley O'Hara social campaign and the recovery benefits of chocolate milk on their social channels
• Educated, inspired and entertained our target in Kelley's training and recovery journey through video and social content as she prepared for the Women's World Cup and capitalizing on each win throughout the tournament
• Intersected each Women's World Cup match with real time social content and engagement efforts to position chocolate milk as an expert via commentary, and generated awareness of the recovery messages while driving video views and social engagement
• Leveraged other Team CHOCOLATE MILK professional athletes, including Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers, to validate the credibility of refueling with chocolate milk, spread the messaging to their fan base and officially welcome Kelley to Team CHOCOLATE MILK

Tactics

• Generated advance buzz and social conversations around our athlete reveal: Leveraged our social channels to share teaser content and tapped third party influencers, like Kelley O'Hara, to drive scale, deliver credibility and amplify our reach.
• Intersected each USA Women's World Cup match: Intersected each Women's World Cup match with real time social content and engagement by proactively and reactively intersecting top trending Women's World Cup soccer conversations. Our efforts not only positioned chocolate milk as a credible authority in the soccer space, fans automatically connected BUILT WITH CHOCOLATE MILK with Kelley O'Hara, but with the United States Women's National Team, and the sport of soccer worldwide.
• Amplified earned media coverage: Anytime the United States Women's National Team and Kelley O'Hara were featured in online media, BUILT WITH CHOCOLATE MILK social channels tapped into the excitement by extending the reach of the articles and bolstering credibility of the chocolate milk recovery message.

Results

• Generated 14.3M social impressions, 124% of goal. Overall earned reach was 62M impressions, yielding a $2.20 CPM.
• A video featuring O'Hara generated nearly 500K views with average view duration of 1:13 or 60% completion rate.
• Cost per view was $0.04 (:30 spot) and $0.08 (long form); these numbers are lower and more efficient from the previous campaign, which was $0.20.
• Twitter (Period: May 1 – July 31, 2015): Mentions: 5,724; Impressions: 11,084,346, 2X higher than the monthly average, 5.2MM, from January & February.
• Instagram: Mentions: 25; Impressions: 991,638
• Facebook: Mentions: 256; Impressions: 2,185,566
• Almost half (48%) of all exercisers are now aware of the BUILT WITH CHOCOLATE MILK campaign (Radius research, Q3'15).
• Adults aware of the campaign were 53% more likely to recall "the benefit of drinking chocolate milk after exercise" than those unaware (Radius research, Q3'15).
• Adults aware of the campaign were 53% more likely to agree with the benefit of chocolate milk helping them to recover after exercise than those unaware (Radius research, Q3'15).

Campaign awareness has had a positive effect on chocolate milk demand and consumption. According to IRI and USDA data, after three years of decline, 2015 has brought growth to flavored milk sales, with 8.4% volume growth in retail flavored milk sales.

Media