For more than 30 years, Butterball has provided turkey expertise to holiday cooks. Nowadays life has become more complicated than ever, so Butterball sought to inspire cooks to look back at nostalgic holiday memories and share what they find special about Thanksgiving. Throwback Thursday (#TBT) dominated social media in 2014 – it was the fourth most popular hashtag with more than 235M+ uses. Butterball saw an opportunity to engage audiences with a holiday campaign that highlighted Butterball as one of the original throwback brands/ trusted resources and connected the shared values around the holiday with an ongoing social movement.
Announcing "Throwback Thanksgiving," Butterball tracked down over 30 years of Turkey Talk-Line imagery, funny stories and classic recipes to create a rich reserve of #TBThanksgiving assets. Butterball successfully used its own #TBThanksgiving content, in-store product packaging sweepstakes and opportunistic social engagement to encourage community sharing as well.
Ultimately, Throwback Thanksgiving provided new and experienced cooks with a personable dose of Turkey Talk-Line wisdom and original content not available to fans. The result was a celebration of more than 30 years of Turkey Talk-Line expertise and an online community interacting with the brand in new ways.
Strategy
Edelman built a plan to merge the time-honored wisdom of Butterball and the Turkey Talk-Line with the comfort of Thanksgiving's past and a powerful social trend.
Butterball built the Thanksgiving program to meet four key objectives:
To meet Butterball's objectives the team leveraged all media partners to create a multi-faceted media strategy which included:
Implementation
Each tactic helped to increase awareness of the wisdom of the Turkey Talk-Line and cast a wide net of coverage across multiple channels:
o The cultural relevance of Throwback Thanksgiving unfolded across social channels with never before seen visuals, recipes and tips from within the Talk-Line archives, encouraging the growing audience to share their Thanksgiving memories with Butterball. Down to the very package (limited time only packaging featured Norman Rockwell's iconic Freedom from Want painting), Butterball lived the "Throwback" concept in kitchens nationwide in November.
o The team ran a Norman Rockwell Sweepstakes encouraging consumers to take their own Thanksgiving tablescape pictures. In the spirit of the Turkey Talk-Line, sharing was encouraged across social media, resulting in community members sharing their favorite holiday memories.
o Butterball secured earned partnerships with YAHOO! Food and PopSugar, putting reporters through "Butterball University." Hands-on media opportunities provided a first-hand look at the modern Turkey Talk-Line and granted access to Talk-Line experts and their memorable experiences over the years.
o A paid integration with Rachael Ray brought Throwback Thanksgiving to life, highlighting the nostalgic packaging and throwback holiday theme. Viewers shared their own throwback photos and winners were selected live on air courtesy of Butterball.
o Integration with in-store shopping app Shopkick rewarded in-store customers and measurably influenced sales during key shopping days leading up to Thanksgiving.
Strategic media efforts targeted influential publications that would fuel coverage beyond the initial placement. We strategically pitched "memorable calls" to Yahoo! Food and Food Beast to drive broadcast coverage which was picked by the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. That influential visibility led to substantial top-tier pick up of the calls as well as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert taping multiple segments of mock Talk-Line calls. From there, a pitched vignette in the Jimmy Fallon and Rashida Jones holiday parody went live and caused another whirlwind of top-tier coverage. The social reverberation was supported by strategic social interaction with media around these moments in time.
Drive cultural relevance
Butterball effectively engaged in Thanksgiving and throwback dialogue. Earned coverage sparked chatter and shares (e.g., The Tonight Show, The Late Show, The Today Show, USA Today, Yahoo! Food, The Chew, Popsugar, Esquire, NPR, etc.).
Shared throwback content and leveraged real-time pop culture events, (Hotline Bling parody, banter with West Wing enthusiasts about an iconic Thanksgiving scene) resulted in earned coverage in publications that wouldn't traditionally cover the brand (e.g., InStyle, The Hollywood Reporter, MLB Network, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, etc.)
By the numbers: The social strategy led to 1.4K+ #TBThanksgiving hashtag uses, a 92% increase in program mentions from 2014. Earned 31K+ engagements on Twitter and 18.9M+ impressions for the month, 25x potential impressions from the month before.
Reinforce brand reasons to believe (RTBs)
Butterball demonstrated their 30+ years of Talk-Line knowledge by branding 1.5 million turkey packages with Norman Rockwell's painting, "Freedom from Want."
Butterball connected with 575K+ cooks on Facebook to answer turkey preparation questions in real-time, provide recipe inspiration, behind-the-scenes looks at the brand and throwback memories, a 20% increase from 2014. Additionally, Facebook posts reached an average 49K users in November, a 206% increase from 2014.
Tap into the emotion of Thanksgiving
Butterball shared several funny, stressful, sweet and compassionate calls throughout the years. Holiday content resonated deeply with users.
By the numbers: Facebook content alone garnered nearly 5K shares, a 74% increase from Thanksgiving 2014. Media covered emotional stories from Talk-Line experts looking back on their careers (NPR StoryCorps, The Guardian, etc.).
