Results and Effectiveness

Pringles Australia fan-page is No. 1 Facebook Brand Fan-Page in Australia with 266,000 fans: bigger than 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th largest Australian fan-pages combined! Pringles message was delivered to 7.1 million Facebook users: total Facebook Australia population at that time. Alert to our fans announcing new King Can was available at a key retailer led to a massive 200% leap in sales within just 2 weeks. We are now armed with a vehicle through which we can engage in a lasting two-way dialogue with consumers, arming our client with the priceless insights they need to win the shelf-space war.

Creative Execution

Modular, a cutting-edge Australian music label, were an ideal strategic partner for Pringles. Leveraging access to Modular’s stable of artists, we created a social-media campaign via ultimate friends’ site, Facebook. A calendar of promotions and interactive elements was designed to deliver an avalanche of Pringles related conversations. To drive base campaign awareness targeted ads ran on Facebook, inviting 3.2 million unique users to become fans of Pringles. Fans interacted with features including polling, commenting, sharing and promotions. To fire their imaginations we produced a bespoke video party application. The user selected: a venue, a Modular band and 100 Facebook friends to create their dream party. A flash-clip of their ultimate party video was posted on their profile and used as a party invitation they could share with friends. As users engaged the momentum built, spreading like wildfire across friend networks until one lucky entrant won the party of their dreams.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The Australian snack-food market is brutally competitive. New launches and aggressive discounting are vital weapons in the snack-food marketer’s arsenal. They face a relentless battle against range deletion given shrinking shelf-space availability . Pringles simply was not resonating with either the consumer (Youth) or primary purchaser (Grocery Buyers). Furthermore they were moving to a higher price-point with the launch of their King can. While consumers would get more chips per pack, the cost difference vs. their cheaper neighbours would be striking at point-of-sale. To survive it was crucial to smash the perception of Pringles as an uncool and boring snack. Instead of using traditional media focused on targeting Grocery Buyers we opted to speak directly to the end- user to drive them to “name call” Pringles when influencing the shopping list. We researched our Youth consumer’s passion points finding that music and friendship are universally important to young Australians.