By 2014, the US snack world had become a $124 billion business, with an average 4,518+ snack items cluttering shelves (IRI, 2014). Goldfish® crackers competed against more wholesome snacks like yogurt and granola bars (IRI, 2014), as well as 'snack giants' like Doritos, Tostitos, and Cheez-It with budgets up to twice that of Goldfish (Kantar Media, 2014). While the overall snack world grew, the 'cracker subset' of Goldfish declined in 2H 2014 as new moms looked elsewhere (IRI, 2014).
Concurrently, the bulk of Goldfish marketing supported a kid-targeted campaign, "Finn & Friends," exhausting the brand's modest media spend, leaving just $2.6MM (Kantar Media, 2014) for other targets. Meanwhile, new insights indicated Goldfish was missing a significant opportunity with an important new target: Millennial Moms.
These industry and brand considerations contributed to our objectives, as follows:
1. Inspire a new target, Millennial Moms, to buy Goldfish crackers, increasing household penetration leading to increased sales and share of cracker snacks - 0.2 penetration increase among our target (~20K HHs) in the 2H of our fiscal 2015.
2. Drive engagement and experience with the Goldfish brand - Her level of campaign-driven interaction with the brand in the digital space.
3. Deliver creative that inspires a significant, positive emotional response and drives emotional connections with Millennial Moms - To exceed advertising norms on emotional metrics, as measured by BrainJuicer's quantitative copytesting.
Research uncovered three powerful insights, which we leveraged to focus our strategy:
Millennial Mom Values: She's prioritizing being happy and present with her children, vs. racing to keep up in a structured, rational adult world. (Millennial Moms, 11/2014, Agency Research)
Goldfish® Product Truth: The unique physical attributes of Goldfish let Mom immerse in the innocence of childhood, enjoy moments of connection with her child, to indulge in whimsy and play. (Psychologics, 2003)
The storytelling power of the Goldfish brand: Leveraged to create an immersive experience into mom/child moments as if she were a character, and drive home the emotion.
Big Idea: Goldfish turns little moments into big smiles.
In storytelling spirit, we launched a campaign called Goldfish Tales. The tales we chose are not about snacks; they're about life – celebrating little moments of connection made happier and richer with Goldfish. They're tales of epic smallness that leverage the brand's smiling personality to stand out in the crowded snack category.
To drive emotional engagement, we created a visually striking miniature environment that puts Goldfish into mom's world, and mom into theirs. We elicited a fun, immersive DIY feel by partnering with one of the best stop-motion animation companies, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (creators of Robot Chicken). They helped create a miniature world where shag carpeting is grassy fields and cotton balls are clouds.
Our first tale is a road trip to Grandma's house. Being stuck in a car is not usually smile-inducing, but with Goldfish, "'Are we there yet,' is a phrase that's happily unsaid!" Our tales use rhyming prose and familiar visuals to tap into Millennial Mom's cherished memories of family road trips.
To connect deeply, we actively engaged moms in storytelling. As observed through social listening, moms and kids are already telling Goldfish Tales! To encourage this behavior, we invited moms to share tales, as inspiration for us and vice versa. Our promotion asked her to submit images, dioramas, poems and prose to GoldfishSmiles.com hub. Selected moms could win trips to U.S. locations of choice to create more little moments / big smiles with Goldfish. The promotion's unprecedented success led to a second round, evolving to accept submissions via social entry [Twitter and Instagram hashtag], with monthly themes to renew inspiration.
The media plan showcases creating, celebrating and sharing moments of connection, anchored in understanding Moms' evolving media habits. We executed across multiple elements: video (TV, digital), digital (purchase-based targeting), print (annual presence in mom-trusted environments), social, and in-store. We told Goldfish Tales across screens, while she's home or on-the-go, and maximized our small budget across linear TV, full episode player, and mobile to drive reach.
We leveraged paid social to promote/distribute Goldfish Tales, spark conversation, and activate crowds through monthly text/photo challenges to generate branded UGC and drive engagement with the Goldfish Tales hub. Moms shared across social networks and Goldfish leveraged the content across owned social channels.
Overall, the campaign achieved penetration goals, increased share among Millennial families, and increased base sales by 2.3% in a declining cracker subset. In just six months, the campaign drove:
- Gains in HHP among Millennial families by adding nearly 25,000 net new Millennial HH's (Source IRI Panel 52wks ending 7/31/15).
- Share growth among Millennial families: 20.8 post vs. 18.6 pre, worth over $7MM in sales (Source IRI Panel).
- Base sales growth 2.3% post vs. 0.9% pre representing $11.5MM (Source: IRI Mulo 26wks ending 8/31/15 vs. 26wks ending 2/25/15).
Additionally, the campaign drove Goldfish® brand affinity / growth:
Delivered significant positive emotional response to brand
- First Tale broke norm, driving moms to feel significant happiness metrics. Registered "5 Star Blockbuster" (BrainJuicer, 9/11/14)
Drove significant engagement / experience with Goldfish
- Inspired +12K tales submissions on GoldfishSmiles.com (Tenthwave, 8/2011)
- Generated +9K social mentions, increasing chatter 50% vs. previous six months (Sysomos monitoring, 8/2015)
- Engaged Facebook audience one full bases point vs. prior year and quadrupled Instagram Fans (Facebook / Instagram, 8/2015)
Expansion
- Campaign expansion - Our first Tale's ["In The Car"] success led to another ["Snow Day"], with a third in development! Our target's engagement with first promotion drove evolution into second via social entry [currently live, November 2015 – July 2016].
- Global expansion into Canadian and Hispanic markets
