BACKGROUND

With the high cost of traditional media and steadily declining TV viewership, Hershey’s set out to pilot a digital campaign to replace its TV efforts, with a goal to strengthen customer affinity for the brand, leading to increased purchase in-store.

CHALLENGES

As a latecomer to digital, Hershey’s had no digital or social presence in the Philippines, compared to rivals KitKat and Cadbury's. Additionally, research showed that although brand recognition was high, the audience had little association with the product's global TV advertising message.

OBJECTIVES

To build Hershey’s brand online, establishing and reinvigorating its brand values to effectively create ongoing engagement with online audiences. KPIs were set for ENGAGEMENT as well as BRAND IMPACT.

To build MARKET SHARE, specifically to increase the past 4 week (P4W) value share of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate by 1% versus same time period in previous year.

Hershey's Happygrams was launched, surprising and delighting users with messages of cheer just when they needed it most. Each Happygram was personalised to address the specific user moment to be relevant and timely, and invited users to the campaign microsite where they could learn about Hershey's mission to spread cheer, and make their own Happygrams for friends.

From June 2015 to March 2016, 4,115 unique, personalised Happygrams were sent to women in need of cheer. Women stuck in traffic, stressed about exams, worrying about work, family, health, beauty and relationships. And they responded back, either by liking, sharing, commenting, or making their own Happygram.

While the Happygrams created high engagement, paid ads on Facebook drove reach, and social media influencers invited followers to participate in the campaign.

And finally, the best happy messages written by users were printed on real Hershey's labels and made available in stores.