Uncertain economical situation in Russia forced companies to cut budgets and postpone launching of new products. Most brands took the approach - stay quite.

Ritter Sport had to support the launch of 4 new SKU’s in these unstable condition.

We decided to play on the territory of Russian national taste. Russians are strange not only in their behavior, humor but in their eating habits as well. We created four absurd tastes and Russian humor by introducing "German Chocolate Meets Russian Cuisine" voting campaign (on the web site).

Campaign was launched before national Fools Day to give it a funny twist.

With a minimum budget our PR strategy was to take a nonstandard approach and find the idea with a WOM potential that would spread out and be picked up by people. Our TA are heavy internet users. We chose the web as the main platform for engagement.

To maximize the effect we used our media relations and published the news about the campaign on the two influential, trend setting digital resources on the basis of exclusivity. The bloggers and other media picked up the news. Forums got emotional, groups were created to support fillings, and loads of UGC appeared. Finally, The April Fool campaign made everyone hungry for the four new flavors.

We received massive PR and free media coverage – a staggering ROI of 50, sales increase by 140% on a budget of only 6000 euros. Over 70 publications in media, including three TV and two radio broadcasts.

The PR Tactics:

1. Support the trust in our consumers that the voting was real.

2. Minimum social media seeding to attract attention to the web site

3. Use media relations to publish the news on trend setting digital resources on the basis of exclusivity. Our choice of the right news platforms ensured celebrities and bloggers' engagement. Other digital media picked up the news.

4. Combination of bloggers' involvement, social media coverage and publications in reliable media – ensured trust to the content.

5. The debate went mad in social media and turned to a real battle of tastes reaching TV and radio-stations. Everyone believed in it.

6. Reveal - when the buzz reached its highest, we revealed our joke and presented four new reals tastes.

6. Most active participants of the voting received gift samples of the real new flavors.

In just 10 days we received massive PR and free media coverage on all channels – a staggering ROI on a budget of only 6000 euros.

250 000 unique votes in 10 days

12 000 people came to the web site to see the voting results

+500% increase in traffic to the website in 2 weeks vs the whole year!

+300% increase in followers on Instagram!

8 000 000 users social media posts reached

120 000 000 Media impressions in Russia alone

300 000 euro Free Media

ROI - 50

+140% sales increase on novelties (newly released chocolates)