Let's Meat Online: Applegate Uses Personality to Reach Digital Consumers
What if you weren’t afraid to read the ingredients on a hot dog package? In 1987, this question inspired meat lover (and failed vegetarian) Stephen McDonald to establish Applegate (www.applegate.com), an organic and natural meat company. The answer — that you’d feel better, and not guilty, about eating and serving them to your family — continues to drive the 25-year-old company today.
Applegate offers high-quality hot dogs, bacon, sausages, deli meats, cheese and frozen products that are free of antibiotics, nitrates and nitrites, artificial preservatives and flavors.
Fascinatingly, though, is the reality that the company is loved and adored by consumers for the people behind its brand as much as it is for great products.
It Starts with Culture
The personal, emotional and authentic connections that Applegate creates with consumers via social media stem from a culture that is founded on openness and transparency, extending from its Founder down through the organization. Operating in this way is particularly important in the meat industry where consumer interest is increasing in sourcing and what is going on behind the scenes.
“A focus on availability of information and on frank, open discussion has helped us thrive internally,” explains Rob O’Donnell, the vice president of Digital Media of the 80-person strong company. “And being able to pull back the curtain goes a long way toward building a trusting relationship with our consumers.”
Talk to any of its employees (aka foodies, cooks, agricultural enthusiasts) or explore its artful office, and you’ll quickly realize that there is another side to Applegate, one that nurtures a spirit of creativity, innovation and fun.
“We don’t take ourselves too seriously,” says O’Donnell.
It’s the perfect combination of serious and silly that allows Applegate’s culture to thrive. Its employee’s sentiment is contagious, leaving most everyone who comes into contact with them declaring, “I want to work at Applegate!”
Luckily for us outsiders, Applegate is not exclusive. It values community. Naturally then, the company’s fun and open cultural tendencies made for a very easy entry into sharing with consumers when social media began to explode.
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that makes up the personality of our brand. I believe that you can create deep and meaningful connections with fans when you allow the brand to express these parts of its personality,” says O’Donnell.
Thus, a social media butterfly was born.
Brand Expression
Traditionally, Applegate’s marketing strategies focused on word-of-mouth with some public relations and a lot of in-store product sampling. Today, however, it is more assertively driving awareness through digital and social channels as well as through integrated communications in select markets.
O’Donnell leads a team of five individuals (including himself) that is responsible for creating deep consumer engagement in Applegate’s primary online channels, including its web site, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Get Satisfaction. The Digital Media team collaborates closely with the company’s Communications and Creative teams to create the digital content that brings the brand and culture to core consumers — as well as to consumers who are early in their exposure to natural and organic meat.
Their goal is to build household penetration by driving awareness and accessibility with campaigns and initiatives that are planned and executed holistically, with all facets of the consumer experience in mind.
“The nice thing about how we operate at Applegate is that digital media is not ‘bolted on’ at the end as an afterthought,” says O’Donnell. “This makes for much more integrated and effective work.
“We will continue to broaden into other channels, while being careful to create a distinct experience in each,” adds O’Donnell. “The last thing that we would want to do is simply replicate our content in a bunch of different channels.”
In order to create a consistent voice across channels, Applegate merged its traditional consumer relations and social media departments almost two years ago.
“Doing this requires that your customer service people are hip to social media, and it requires that your social media people have a customer service headset,” says O’Donnell, who used Get Satisfaction, a community platform for creating and engaging customer experiences, to operationalize the merger and create efficiency in answering consumer questions.
With a holistic marketing strategy in place, Applegate could focus on delivering social content that hits two critical marks. The first is great content that is on brand. The second is making sure that it’s meaningful to its audience. How does Applegate accomplish both?
“Simply, be authentic,” says O’Donnell. “The brand has a personality that can be expressed through what it cares about, what it thinks is funny, what it likes to share, how it takes responsibility and most importantly — how it listens. Those traits are going to be unique to each brand, and faking it will not go very far.”
For Applegate, being authentic means avoiding content that just sells stuff because, let’s be honest, no one really wants to clog his or her Facebook feed with pictures of deli meat.
Instead, O’Donnell and his team work to create content that connects, provokes, inspires and entertains the consumer. Applegate is also careful to strike the right balance of creating “on brand” and curating “around brand” content.
These philosophies are working. Facebook posts with expressive content helped to grow the company’s Facebook page likes to nearly 450K between January 2012 and June 2013 (see Applegate’s Greatest Facebook Hits). Applegate also averages 5 percent to 10 percent on Facebook’s People Talking About This (PTAT) metric, which helps brands track engagement on their pages and hence measures the “word of mouth at scale” they are achieving.
Applegate uses tools, like Radian6 and Simply Measured, to monitor and measure its social interactions in terms of purchase intent, but O’Donnell says the biggest rewards come from the interactions themselves.
“These social channels are a wonderful opportunity for us to talk one-on-one and one-to-many with our consumers.... We learn a lot from our consumers and have an opportunity to share what we’re about,” he says.
New Ways to Market
Applegate is currently running a “What’s In Your Hot Dog?” campaign online nationally, and via more traditional methods in select markets. The focus is to drive awareness of the brand by promoting its hot dog line with fun content.
In the past, the campaign introduced Applegate fans to unforgettable characters, like Mooscles, The Shot and a Steer and Fried Steak. And in 2013, Mooscles Junior joins Applegate’s comical cast of characters.
This year, leading into the Fourth of July, Applegate launched the “Wienervention” app on Facebook. In short, Facebook fans of Applegate can help friends and family proclaim their independence from bad meat by sending them a Wienervention and lead them down a cleaner path with a coupon for Applegate’s natural and organic hotdogs.
“This campaign has been a great way for us to get the brand in front of people who may not know us, explain a bit about what makes our products different and express the fun side of our brand in how we do it,” says O’Donnell.
And, as expected for Applegate, consumer response has been overwhelmingly positive.
How to think like a person
Applegate’s Vice President of Digital Media Rob O’Donnell shares digital marketing tips that you haven’t heard before.
Watch Applegate in Action
As part of Applegate’s “What’s In Your Hot Dog?” Campaign, the company launched a “Wienervention” app on Facebook “that allows you to help a friend who may be addicted to bad wieners,” says O’Donnell, with his tongue firmly in cheek. Fans can both share a coupon and be rewarded with a coupon for Applegate products.
Applegate offers high-quality hot dogs, bacon, sausages, deli meats, cheese and frozen products that are free of antibiotics, nitrates and nitrites, artificial preservatives and flavors.
Fascinatingly, though, is the reality that the company is loved and adored by consumers for the people behind its brand as much as it is for great products.
It Starts with Culture
The personal, emotional and authentic connections that Applegate creates with consumers via social media stem from a culture that is founded on openness and transparency, extending from its Founder down through the organization. Operating in this way is particularly important in the meat industry where consumer interest is increasing in sourcing and what is going on behind the scenes.
“A focus on availability of information and on frank, open discussion has helped us thrive internally,” explains Rob O’Donnell, the vice president of Digital Media of the 80-person strong company. “And being able to pull back the curtain goes a long way toward building a trusting relationship with our consumers.”
Talk to any of its employees (aka foodies, cooks, agricultural enthusiasts) or explore its artful office, and you’ll quickly realize that there is another side to Applegate, one that nurtures a spirit of creativity, innovation and fun.
“We don’t take ourselves too seriously,” says O’Donnell.
It’s the perfect combination of serious and silly that allows Applegate’s culture to thrive. Its employee’s sentiment is contagious, leaving most everyone who comes into contact with them declaring, “I want to work at Applegate!”
Luckily for us outsiders, Applegate is not exclusive. It values community. Naturally then, the company’s fun and open cultural tendencies made for a very easy entry into sharing with consumers when social media began to explode.
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that makes up the personality of our brand. I believe that you can create deep and meaningful connections with fans when you allow the brand to express these parts of its personality,” says O’Donnell.
Thus, a social media butterfly was born.
Brand Expression
Traditionally, Applegate’s marketing strategies focused on word-of-mouth with some public relations and a lot of in-store product sampling. Today, however, it is more assertively driving awareness through digital and social channels as well as through integrated communications in select markets.
O’Donnell leads a team of five individuals (including himself) that is responsible for creating deep consumer engagement in Applegate’s primary online channels, including its web site, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Get Satisfaction. The Digital Media team collaborates closely with the company’s Communications and Creative teams to create the digital content that brings the brand and culture to core consumers — as well as to consumers who are early in their exposure to natural and organic meat.
Their goal is to build household penetration by driving awareness and accessibility with campaigns and initiatives that are planned and executed holistically, with all facets of the consumer experience in mind.
“The nice thing about how we operate at Applegate is that digital media is not ‘bolted on’ at the end as an afterthought,” says O’Donnell. “This makes for much more integrated and effective work.
“We will continue to broaden into other channels, while being careful to create a distinct experience in each,” adds O’Donnell. “The last thing that we would want to do is simply replicate our content in a bunch of different channels.”
In order to create a consistent voice across channels, Applegate merged its traditional consumer relations and social media departments almost two years ago.
“Doing this requires that your customer service people are hip to social media, and it requires that your social media people have a customer service headset,” says O’Donnell, who used Get Satisfaction, a community platform for creating and engaging customer experiences, to operationalize the merger and create efficiency in answering consumer questions.
With a holistic marketing strategy in place, Applegate could focus on delivering social content that hits two critical marks. The first is great content that is on brand. The second is making sure that it’s meaningful to its audience. How does Applegate accomplish both?
“Simply, be authentic,” says O’Donnell. “The brand has a personality that can be expressed through what it cares about, what it thinks is funny, what it likes to share, how it takes responsibility and most importantly — how it listens. Those traits are going to be unique to each brand, and faking it will not go very far.”
For Applegate, being authentic means avoiding content that just sells stuff because, let’s be honest, no one really wants to clog his or her Facebook feed with pictures of deli meat.
Instead, O’Donnell and his team work to create content that connects, provokes, inspires and entertains the consumer. Applegate is also careful to strike the right balance of creating “on brand” and curating “around brand” content.
These philosophies are working. Facebook posts with expressive content helped to grow the company’s Facebook page likes to nearly 450K between January 2012 and June 2013 (see Applegate’s Greatest Facebook Hits). Applegate also averages 5 percent to 10 percent on Facebook’s People Talking About This (PTAT) metric, which helps brands track engagement on their pages and hence measures the “word of mouth at scale” they are achieving.
Applegate uses tools, like Radian6 and Simply Measured, to monitor and measure its social interactions in terms of purchase intent, but O’Donnell says the biggest rewards come from the interactions themselves.
“These social channels are a wonderful opportunity for us to talk one-on-one and one-to-many with our consumers.... We learn a lot from our consumers and have an opportunity to share what we’re about,” he says.
New Ways to Market
Applegate is currently running a “What’s In Your Hot Dog?” campaign online nationally, and via more traditional methods in select markets. The focus is to drive awareness of the brand by promoting its hot dog line with fun content.
In the past, the campaign introduced Applegate fans to unforgettable characters, like Mooscles, The Shot and a Steer and Fried Steak. And in 2013, Mooscles Junior joins Applegate’s comical cast of characters.
This year, leading into the Fourth of July, Applegate launched the “Wienervention” app on Facebook. In short, Facebook fans of Applegate can help friends and family proclaim their independence from bad meat by sending them a Wienervention and lead them down a cleaner path with a coupon for Applegate’s natural and organic hotdogs.
“This campaign has been a great way for us to get the brand in front of people who may not know us, explain a bit about what makes our products different and express the fun side of our brand in how we do it,” says O’Donnell.
And, as expected for Applegate, consumer response has been overwhelmingly positive.
How to think like a personApplegate’s Vice President of Digital Media Rob O’Donnell shares digital marketing tips that you haven’t heard before.
- Avoid Routine: Once you find that thing that “always works”, it’s going to get old fast. Leverage your successes, but sparingly. Strive to create the next one.
- Be Nimble: Always fight for content to be the highest quality possible, but don’t let this choke you into silence. Balance quality and speed — recalibrating as you go.
- Curate Great Content: Find and share great content in your brand’s universe. (“Look at this cool thing!”)
- Go with Your Gut: Have a plan, but don’t be rigid. Be prepared to drop it, and go with the content that you feel in your gut, even if it makes you a bit nervous — especially if it makes you a bit nervous.
Watch Applegate in Action
As part of Applegate’s “What’s In Your Hot Dog?” Campaign, the company launched a “Wienervention” app on Facebook “that allows you to help a friend who may be addicted to bad wieners,” says O’Donnell, with his tongue firmly in cheek. Fans can both share a coupon and be rewarded with a coupon for Applegate products.