Digital CPG Blog

Yesterday, we talked about Kleenex using the inherently social nature of the internet to spark a social sampling campaign that increased it’s market share. Today, we’re reporting on a similar initiative by Heinz – this time on Facebook.

“Heinz has opened up a pop-up ‘tryvertising’ f-store on Facebook (tryvertising = advertising by sampling designed to create word of mouth, pop-up = temporary), making an initial 3,000 bottles of its latest tomato ketchup (with Balsamic Vinegar) exclusively available to ketchup fans – before the new product is launched in traditional stores.  The f-store is slick, simple and smart.  Kudos Heinz, for smart social commerce,” reports Paul Marsden.

Similar to Kleenex, Heinz hasn’t tried to move an existing campaign online, but rather has created an online social event that uses the best of the web to spread the word about it’s new product.

“Rather than simply mirror your traditional web-store with an f-store selling all your wares (à la Asos), instead use Facebook to create word of mouth advocacy for your new product launches by rewarding brand fans with an exclusive trial designed to stimulate word of mouth (a variableknown to accelerate product uptake). The combination of exclusivity, scarcity with experience is a proven technique for stimulating word of mouth, combined with the Facebook platform – which is essentially a word of mouth platform – with a differentiated rationale versus web stores.  In other words, use Facebook for retail events. In our book, the future of f-commerce lies in retail events, not stores that simply replicate what is sold elsewhere.”

Too many brands are trying to replicate existing experiences instead of building experiences suited towards the medium. And especially with Facebook, you can’t simply just plop your site into the iframe and expect results. You need to look at Facebook as the social platform it is, and strategize and execute accordingly.