CAPTURE HEARTS & CREATE USAGE OCCASIONS

The strategists from Morris Creative realized that the most promising solution for seasonal slumps was for Mrs. Smith’s to own more usage occasions. Moreover, the client needed a strategy that the competition could not readily duplicate.

Facts: The family unit is continuing to fragment, social networking websites are soaring and families are purchasing 30 greeting cards a year (with women accounting for eight in 10 cards purchased).

What does this show us? A portrait of lonely spirits longing for contact. The fit between women as card buyers and pie purchasers was simply too good to pass up!

A two-phase campaign was in the cards:

• First, packets of heart-warming greeting cards were mailed to a select list of buyers.
• A cover note motivated recipients with warm, inviting greetings like “Let’s grab a moment”. Visuals were tantalizing shots of pie slices.
• Each pack included coupons to be redeemed during off-months and a slip to order more cards.

Still, the most compelling element of the campaign was its emotional appeal. The simple charm of messages like “What are you doing this weekend?” resonated with our pie-lovers longing to reconnect.

SWEET SUCCESS: AN OVERWHELMING RESPONSE

The program achieved a response rate almost 5 times greater than the average direct mail coupon program!

Original recipients were obviously in total agreement with the Brand Proposition and could not wait to host more get-togethers over pie. Secondary recipients (about half) became Brand Ambassadors, in effect gaining new buyers for Mrs. Smith’s.

Just as important, perhaps, the program cheered recipients to the point of expressing their gratitude to Mrs. Smith’s.

Many revealed how touched they were by the thoughtful gesture and how right it felt to have a slice of pie with loved ones.

Coupon Redemption? An impressive increase from 4.75% to 7.61%! A new usage occasion was born and Mrs. Smith’s grip on it was hard and fast.

MONEY, MINTS, AND MOMENTUM

The strategists at Morris Creative immediately grasped the tremendous opportunity for strategic re-positioning with an inspired combination of new media, in-depth insights into youth market drivers and the fun, friendly, memorable “fresh entertainment” core of the Tic Tac brand franchise.

The breakthrough solution turned out to be formulating multiple incentives to the trade while shaping immense excitement among Web-savvy consumers – the core 18-34 demographic of the Tic Tac brand.

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MINTERTAINMENT!

Our team went beyond surface level visibility on the Web by creating an entirely new consumer marketing portal for Tic Tac. The interactive website appealed mightily to young surfers with the “best of” picks for Music, Entertainment News, Voting Polls, and the celebrity “fix” they had to have everyday.

In a world that is still coming to grips with the YouTube phenomenon, our team catapulted Tic Tac to instant superstar status on the Web by urging the young to upload their fun and memorable Tic Tac vignettes for a cash prize of $10,000.

Morris Creative Strategists looked after the Food, Drug and Mass Trade with a wide range of point-of-sale displays that regained superb visibility for Tic Tac and functioned as dispensers for the Tic Tac “Mintertainment Guide”. Retailers were enthused about these colorful lifestyle guides filled with valuable coupon offers that induced shoppers to redeem coupons in-store, drove incremental volume for Tic Tac, and stimulated repeat purchase.

Trade partners also received the benefit of a nationally distributed FSI, and a matching $10,000 donation to charity for the store that the video contest winner patronized.

In turn, shoppers received a whole slew of rewards – both instantly and for many weeks afterwards. After redeeming the coupons in-store, youthful shoppers, avidly caught up on Mintertainment Guide’s lifestyle tips, also took advantage of discount offers on movie tickets, DVD rentals, music, books, dining, flowers and gifts.

As an additional motivational hook, every guide contained a “T2 All Access Card” with a code that unlocked a special section of the Mintertainment promotional website. Here, consumers could access one of the largest coupon databases in the U.S., and were able to print and redeem refreshing offers worth hundreds of dollars.

Consumers could also view and vote for Tic Tac videos others had already created and upload their own entries.

A SLAM DUNK

Two daunting tasks lay ahead: immediately stimulate activity and address African Americans as an extension of the mainstream market.

The strategists from Morris Creative set to work, galvanized by commissioned qualitative research and the Yankelovich African-American Monitor of values, attitudes and lifestyles. With NCAA “March Madness” was just around the corner, the writing was on the wall.

The solution: An elegantly simple mix of integrating consumer insight with a quickburst integrated marketing campaign. The theme, “Bring Your Game Home with Heineken!” served up a vigorous call to action that was clearly heard.

Chief Elements:

• Consumer Sweepstakes – Offering a Big Screen DVR package, cash & more
• Retail – Complete POS materials for on and off-premise accounts.
• Event Marketing – A 3-on-3 tournament, held in Chicago.
• Internet Marketing – This extended to thematic advertising and CPC links in AA social sites driving click-though to Heineken.com, as well as online games, email marketing, and home entertainment guides.
• Saturation Media Coverage – Chicago all media AA market mix

HIGH SCORE: A 38% LIFT!

• The Sweepstakes attracted more entries than any Heineken USA African-American initiative—and was one of their best performing programs overall.
• Fifty teams crowded the Chicago event, generating huge media presence.
• The interactive campaign scored over a million impressions in three months; click-throughs came in ten times higher than industry averages.
• At retail, POS Utilization was overwhelming at over 99% of amount budgeted.

The Big Bang: Total lifts soared at least 38% versus prior month. End-of-year, total domestic sales were up by 10%, outstripping the industry 4% average.

A BREAKTHROUGH IDEA BY POPULAR VOTE

Edwards should poll the electorate, generate grassroots buzz, get state officials behind the brand, provoke media noise, and extend excitement to all 50 states. Oh, and move product as well!

The Please Pass the Pie campaign was born—nothing less than a national lobby to name an “Official State Pie” in each of 48 states that still do not have one. The first showdown came in Florida after Sen. Larcenia Bullard and Rep. Dan Gelber got an official state pie bill passed out of the legislative committee.

At the same time, our strategists stoked the excitement on the grassroots level with an Interactive Voting Website and Informative Podcasts. As the floor vote officially came to a head, consumers were invited to have their say at the “American Pie Festival” in Celebration, FL.

A BLITZ OF MEDIA AND PR

For months, Edwards garnered huge publicity and word-of-mouth mileage:

• Needing no persuasion, local, national and trade media gleefully picked up on the need for each state to have an official pie. Publicity spilled over the border to Ontario and Yahoo! News publicized the “Florida question” on the Internet.
• At the state capitol in Tallahassee, legislators officially cast their votes. At the “American Pie Festival”, consumers enjoyed themselves with eating contests while casting their ballots in the lighthearted mock election.
• Rollouts to California, Chicago, Baltimore, and Seattle followed. ABC-TV “Eyewitness” coverage of the event in Los Angeles delivered over half a million impressions. At the end of Phase I, votes for local favorites were cast in four states.