Objectives

While TUMS enjoys broad recognition as the immediate heartburn relief category leader, consumers don't always love the classic product's "chalky" taste. So, TUMS launched "Chewy Bites", an antacid that works just as fast as regular TUMS, but with a tasty outer shell and soft, chewy center.

Despite its category leadership, TUMS shares were down, partly due to growing innovative offerings from competitive brands. New antacid products had taken steps to improve upon taste, while social listening uncovered that nearly half of conversations around TUMS and taste are of negative sentiment; consumers often describing the taste as "chalky".

To meet projected growth and profit targets for 2017, and to compete with recent category innovations, TUMS needed to leverage its household name status and "fast relief" claim to promote a product unlike any other within its existing portfolio, while differentiating itself from other brands within the category.

These objectives in mind, TUMS chose to forgo targeting its broad, A25-54 demographic, and instead sought to focus on a group in which the brand does not have historically high penetration: millennials. While millennials do experience heartburn, social listening identified taste aversion as a potential reason for which they forgo treating with TUMS. This is the insight the TUMS Chewy Bites campaign sought to address.

Strategy and Execution

In order to increase awareness, purchase and brand love for TUMS Chewy Bites, TUMS needed to communicate the product's differentiator – fast relief in every bite with a tasty outer shell and soft, chewy center – through a multi-faceted approach. To do this, we chose to communicate through one of America's tastiest (and most heartburn-inducing) foods – pizza.

CAMPAIGN KICKOFF

To kick-off our campaign in a tasty, attention-grabbing way, we launched with a one-day-only Free Pizza Giveaway on Twitter. By partnering with a real-time food delivery service, we gave consumers nationwide the chance to win pizza in real-time; fans receiving deliveries to their doorsteps in one hour or less. Promoted in the YouTube masthead for additional reach, we drove consumers to Twitter, where they could tweet with the hashtag #TUMSChewyBites for a chance to win. The campaign's hashtag also activated our custom Twitter emoji, adding a visual element and additional opportunity to engage, while aligning with our millennial target.

INFLUENCER AMPLIFICATION

To personify the fun, youthful sentiment of TUMS Chewy Bites, we partnered with millennial influencers; putting fresh faces on our classic brand, and inserting ourselves authentically into millennial conversations on new, relevant platforms. Influencers drove entries to our Free Pizza Giveaway from Twitter and Instagram, posting a mixture of GIFs, photos and Instagram stories for maximum reach, and maintained the buzz about TUMS Chewy Bites on multiple channels in the months following.

SUPPORTING SOCIAL CREATIVE

Throughout the campaign, product-heavy creative posted to the TUMS Facebook and Twitter pages served to aid brand recognition, but also incorporated eye-catching visual elements to capture attention and encourage engagement.

The TUMS Chewy Bites campaign kicked off with a real-time, attention-grabbing activation promoted on channels both new and familiar to the TUMS brand, capturing both loyal and new consumers. The combination of influencer creative, product-focused content, and a tasty, real-time giveaway resulted in a cohesive campaign that sparked interest in an exciting new product, while sustaining conversations in months to follow.

Results

Through successful communication of this product's fast, tasty messaging, TUMS Chewy Bites saw growth in each of its primary objectives: brand awareness, purchase and brand love.

AWARENESS

• 12 point lift in ad recall and 8 point lift in brand awareness (category benchmarks: +9 points; +3 points, respectively).

BRAND LOVE

• 50,000 campaign hashtag uses of #TUMSChewyBites in 24 hours; meaning 50,000 uses of the TUMS Chewy Bites custom emoji, outperforming Twitter benchmarks for paid promoted trends by nearly 2x (benchmark 30,000 uses).
• Average age of consumers who engage with the Free Pizza Giveaway was 24.1 years, meaning the activation successfully engaged the millennial target we'd sought.
• Campaign resulted in a 14% increase in positive sentiment among conversations around TUMS Chewy Bites.

PURCHASE

• 5 point lift in purchase intent; 5x the industry benchmark lift (category benchmark is +1 point).
• TUMS Chewy Bites has seen 18.3% of triers make a repeat purchase; this among the highest repeat rates of comparable offerings, including former soft chew category leader Alka Seltzer Gummies.
• Dollar index for Chewy Bites is 45% higher among millennials than that of the portfolio total.
• Most recent dollar sales for Chewy Bites exceed that of Alka Seltzer Heartburn Relief Chews.

The above results show significant growth in all three brand objectives, and demonstrate a level of new product awareness that will allow us to seamlessly incorporate TUMS Chewy Bites and its unique benefits into future social and digital creative campaigns.

Media