The Challenge: Find an interesting, breakthrough way to inspire more flavorful and colorful baking. The Solution: Tap into the quintessential creative baking occasion – bake sales – and simulate the growing ecommerce behaviors on Pinterest via a Virtual Bake Sale competition for a chance to win prizes and bragging rights. The Results: The competition invited well-known food influencers and Pinterest users to showcase their baking skills and experiment with inspirational recipes trending on the social site. The campaign generated more than 2K new followers and 5K repins for the McCormick Spice Pinterest page. As a flavorful resource for food lovers and everyday cooks, McCormick is constantly seeking creative ways to engage with consumers on Pinterest. In addition to sharing its own recipes and ideas, McCormick uses Pinterest to elevate influencer partners and build relationships. In September 2013, McCormick partnered with Mom It Forward, a worldwide social community of more than 5K members, to host a Virtual Bake Sale competition on Pinterest. McCormick challenged six teams of six food influencers to revamp bake sale favorites with flavor and color, using McCormick spices, food color and extracts to bring their creativity to life. The teams set up virtual “bake sale tables" via a Pinterest board populated with a collection of enticing cookies and brownies. Inspired by current trends on Pinterest (like the Crownie!), and with the excitement of competition, participants got adventurous with their recipes to tempt their followers to repin items from their board. Simulating the growing ecommerce behaviors on Pinterest, McCormick used its own version of Pinterest currency to determine the winners by counting every repin as “revenue" for the respective bake sale team. The team with the highest sales won. The Virtual Bake Sale helped McCormick foster creative baking and recipe growth on Pinterest. The campaign proved successful with a brand page increase of more than 2K followers and more than 5K repins during the three week program. Since its initial launch in September, the Virtual Bake Sale board has gained more than 20K followers with an average of more than 430 repins per pin. McCormick continues to keep up its presence on Pinterest by pinning several times a week with content that is inspirational, timely, and attainable for its followers and potential new fans. With key engagement times growing stronger during the weekend and in months advance of seasonal holidays, McCormick continues to adapt strategies and content to drive stronger engagement rates – while still providing content that is both valuable and relevant to new and potential followers.
• McCormick Spice Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/mccormickspices/boards/ • Virtual Bake Sale: http://www.pinterest.com/mccormickspices/virtual-bake-sale/ • Participating Blogger: http://www.thehappierhomemaker.com/2013/09/hazelnut-mocha-chip-cookies.html
