General Mills: "Yoplait Kids Connects With Moms Online" — Live from BlogWell

1:30 – Bob Pearson introduces David Witt — Public Relations Manager, General Mills

1:32 – David: Questions we get often: Are people really interested in inexpensive consumer products? I think the P&G folks would tell you people are really interested in Dawn dish detergent — a lot of people are. Not everyone, but some.

1:33 – David: A couple months ago, we repositioned our Yoplait yogurt to make it really talkable.

1:32 – David: Questions we get often: Are people really interested in inexpensive consumer products? I think the P&G folks would tell you people are really interested in Dawn dish detergent — a lot of people are. Not everyone, but some.

1:32 – David: There are people that are interested in just about everything. People gather based on their affinities and interests.

1:33 – David: I knew we were on to something when my wife started buying the product.

1:33 – David: This case study is about energizing the consumer already interested in a product.

1:34 – David: Quote from the brand team on this case study: I would mention not only is this the most credible way to talk to moms, but for a very targeted audience where we’re constantly ushering in new moms, it’s about the only way to reach them.

1:35 – David: Goal was awareness and brand advocacy.

1:36 – David: There’s a gravitational pull online around niche. So how do you get scale in a niche world?

1:37 – David: Peer recommendations: 67% of moms online view blogs as a reliable source of advice and an influence on their purchasing decisions.

1:37 – David: Online coupon use is increasing at a rapid rate.

1:38 – David: Thousands and thousands gave their names and numbers to request a coupon. I wanted them to be really interested in the product, not the consumer offer. We identified and built relationships with hundreds of bloggers that would find this information relevant.

1:39 – David: We provided product information, samples, coupons, and prize packs that they could give away to readers. It’s all about disclosure, the term I use is “overtly transparent.”

1:39 – David: We supplemented this with traditional PR. It was primarily online outreach.

1:40 – David: How we reached them: Dedicated emails. Found communities with lots of moms.

1:40 – David: Blog results of the campaign: Delivered our key message and energized consumers. Our philosophy is that we try to reward and recognize them as much as possible. If we have something of interest, we try to let them know first.

1:42 – David: Results: We delivered nearly 300,000 coupons.

1:42 – David: The more valuable the coupon, the more talkable — the better the word of mouth.

1:43 – David: Placements: 5,800 placements (800 on blogs) — and anyone who works with blogs knows, it’s hard to develop those relationships.

1:43 – David: The money line here is that we saw a significant increase in sales. We have a positive ROI — folks tried this talkable product.

1:44 – David: Again, this is about energizing the consumers. We’re exploring a lot of ways how we interact directly with the consumers.

1:45 – David: Key learnings:

1. Gravitational pull to niche.
2. Make it about them — it’s got to be about consumers. Provide them with information, products, and services relevant to them.
3. Provide content in a format and location that they find useful.
4. Integrate social media efforts with traditional PR for synergistic support.
5. Reaching out to a highly engaged audience can achieve a brand’s goal effectively and efficiently.
6. To have remarkable results, product must be remarkable.

Q&A:

Q: Do you have any data on dads?

A: I’m sure we do, but women do 75% of the grocery shopping, so we primarily focus on women.

Q: Can you talk a little bit more about how you did the outreach to the bloggers?

A: At General Mills, we don’t have agencies of record, so we use several agencies. I went to an agency with great credentials, and told them exactly what I wanted to do. They’d really never done anything like that before, which is why this was such a big event for us. I said: What I really want to do is reach young moms online. So, it was through an agency. Again, just kind of jumping in head first, they had never really done it before, but they did a great job.

Q: You mentioned that because you were targeting moms with kids zero to four, that these are a group that are going to cycle in and out of being in that category — so, what do you anticipate in terms of needing to repeat this kind of effort?

A: In some respects, you can continue to do different variations of the same type of thing, because there are new bloggers and new moms all the time. To keep it fresh, the lifeblood, in my view, is new product news. It’s not only the getting the message out to the same bloggers and new bloggers, but being relevant with your products and giving them something they can talk about.

Q: But for those of us who are not so blessed, who may have stink or just an average product: 1. Is this effective to help identify a bad product? 2. Will this work for a regular product?

A: If you believe there’s no such thing as bad publicity, you’re going to get coverage. If you want to find out early, there’s lots of connections you can use to find out early — BlogHer, for example, will test products and loves to do it. They’re also willing to not talk about something, if they’re “in the know.” Will it work for a regular product? Yes, it will, it can work for anything. If you can find the people that are interested in what you have, then yes, they’ll talk about it.

Q: You talked a little bit about the coupon, how important was the coupon to get bloggers to talk about you? Is just the product itself enough to talk about?

A: We did a program recently, with Pillsbury, it did have a cause related to it. So it could be a cause — some action item, doesn’t have to be a coupon. David mentions another campaign for Yoplait that encouraged people to create online teams for a cause.

Q: You’ve obviously captured some favorable online sentiment, have you thought of using this content offline?

A: We’re working on some of that now. We’re testing that. This is how I judge an idea: How many lawyers do you have to meet with? This idea, I met with three lawyers. I thought excellent! Good idea. Consumers care about what other consumers think.