Profero Thumbs/UP – Walkers ‘Do Us A Flavour’

Brand: Walkers
Initiative: Do Us A Flavour
Markets: United Kingdom
Dates: July 08 – May 09

Background
Part of the PepsiCo family, Walkers is one of the UK leading brands in the Snack Food industry primarily producing potato crisps. In the past few years, because of their limited product selection and more competitors entering the market with new different flavours, they had to try and expand their product range to defend a strong market share.

Challenge
How can Walkers Crisps retain their market share when rival brands are producing competitive flavours and offering new and original options for a highly demanded FMCG product?

Approach
The brand decided to differentiate themselves from their competitors with the choice of introducing new flavours to their ‘main offering’ without producing another premium range (ie. Sensations), therefore not compromising their retail price.
However, because with product development it’s extremely important for any brand to listen to their consumers and obtain insights into their trends, who would know best which flavour to introduce into the market if not your own customers?

The Idea
In July 2008 Walkers launched their biggest, boldest and most innovative multimedia campaign to date called ‘Do us a Flavour‘. The idea was to give power back to the consumers and ‘capture the heart of the nation’ inviting the public to create the next great flavour of Walkers Crisps.

The campaign was structured on 3 stages:

• Submit your flavour (July 08 – Nov 08) / Users were invited to submit ideas for a unique flavour together with a picture of what inspired them to do so.  They could enter the competition either through the web, by mobile or by post. To enter via the Walkers website, consumers simply had to enter their flavour idea, contact details and upload the image of what inspired them. The process was the same to enter via mobile; consumers were provided with a number to send an MMS to (picture message) with exactly the same details. Every entry was then provided with a link (e-mail or WAP link) giving the opportunity to forward this to a friend and for others to vote on their flavour.

• Choose 6 final flavours and test them (Nov 08 – Jan 09 ) / Although a voting system was implemented within the website, 5 celebrity judges were chosen to select the 6 final flavours to test into the market. The finalists were:

• Choose the Winner (Jan 09 – May 09)/ At this stage it is totally in the hands of the nation to vote for their favourite new official Walkers flavour. The flavour which receives the most votes from the public via Walker’s website by 1st May will remain on sale, while the other five will be discontinued.

The Outcomes

• As of January 2009 the 6 new flavours have been introduced into the market for consumers to decide which one ‘tickles their taste buds’ the most. All 6 finalists have received £10,000 with the final winner to receive £50,000 plus 1% from sales’ profit.
• At the launch of the campaign, Walkers was expecting a maximum of 250,000 entries to the competition. As of October 2008, the website had received an astonishing 1.2 million flavours’ ideas
• In June 2008, Walkers.co.uk received 20,000 Unique Visitors. Not surprisingly, between August and October 2008 unique visitors went up to 440,000
• The campaign was so successful that every single ATL creative activity (Press, TV and Radio) was inspired by the online initiative and driving traffic to the competition online.

The Learnings

• Digital at the core of the Integrated approach / Digital interactivity is and has played a key part in all three stages of the nine month campaign. To be voted, users could share their links with their peers; packaging and offline campaigns were driving traffic to the website and inviting users to vote through TXTs and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) phone service. Let’s give an end to the era where digital was simply the last thought!

• It’s all about MY experience / The integrated approach to their communication was totally aimed at providing the user with a ‘Unique Walkers Experience’. From submitting the ideas to voting and buying the new product – it’s all about the interaction between the consu’ME’r and the brand

• ‘Win their hearts, win their minds’ / The aim of the campaign was to ‘touch the heart of a nation’ giving power back to the consumers. What it’s generally defined as ‘emotional marketing’ is often one of the best ways to impeccably reach your consumers

• Involve your consumer with NPD / New Product Development becomes particularly effective when in the hands of your consumer. With Walkers this was done live with thousands and millions of customers continuously interacting with the brand.