SITUATION: In 2018, Chobani, an American yogurt company, planned to launch a kids yogurt.

CHALLENGE

Launch a new line of kids yogurts with zero paid media.

OBJECTIVES

Reach 27% awareness of Gimmies among target audience

Reach 1.5% Household Penetration of Gimmies among target audience

CREATIVE STRATEGY: Frenzy of “Drop Culture” driven by desire for uniqueness

“Drops,” popularized by the tastemaker Supreme, have become media events in their own right. Furthermore, our research showed that 5- to 11-year-olds are motivated by the same desires that fuel drops: the yearning for uniqueness. Unique apparel and accessories are often the easiest and best way for them to feel unique.

IDEA

Create Gimmies merchandise so good that Chobani fans and followers would want it so bad. We called it “The Gimmies Drop.”

We designed limited-edition fashion apparel (jackets, onesies, hats), equipment (skateboards, skimboards, scooters), accessories (patches, necklaces, backpacks, bean bags, iPhone earbuds, temporary tattoos), and more using these characters and produced a total of 1,600 units.

AUDIENCE INSIGHT: Kids don’t just like; They OBSESS

Over the years, children fall in love with many different things. An introduction to LEGOS soon leads to a room filled with LEGOS. One day it’s LEGOS, the next day it’s Star Wars, or Frozen, or whatever. Regardless of their fascination, they become engrossed. They live and breathe it.

PLATFORMS

Social media and owned properties were used exclusively to raise awareness and execute this campaign.

- Social Media - Instagram (stories and posts)

- Owned Properties - Landing page on chobani.com and emails sent to subscriber lists

- We designed limited-edition apparel, equipment, accessories, and more.

- Drops happened every day at noon across 14 days.

- At 11:45am each day, we sent an email to Chobani’s subscriber list and posted a story on Chobani’s Instagram. Both teased that day’s drop. Email open rates exceeded benchmark by 201% and averaged 54% across 14 days.

- A link in the email and Instagram story directed fans to a dedicated page with a countdown clock on chobani.com. For unsubscribed fans driven to the site by Instagram or word of mouth, the site prompted them to enter their email to get the scoop on the next day’s drop. This added 18,000 new subscribers to our email list, which was 4.5x our benchmark (a two-week long yogurt-only giveaway contest).

- Each day at 11:59am, tens of thousands of people—reaching as high as 120,000 —queued up to snag the merchandise.

OBJECTIVE:

Reach 27% awareness of Gimmies among target audience

RESULTS:

Achieved +35% awareness of Gimmies among yogurt buyers

At its height, Chobani had 120,000 visitors waiting for the drop to begin

+66.9% increase in traffic to chobani.com during the 14-day period (versus all time highest 14-day traffic)

BONUS RESULT:

10,000+ subscribers to the Chobani Instagram account during the 14 days, which suggests the drop created a word of mouth impact among parents

20+ eBay listings during the month following the campaign compared to 1 listing in the previous year

OBJECTIVE: Reach 1.5% Household Penetration of Gimmies among target audience

RESULTS: Achieved 2.4% Household Penetration in the first 3 months of the product launching