Paramount Farms Becomes a Digital Marketing Powerhouse
Paramount Farms established itself as a digital marketing powerhouse in just five short years since Wonderful Pistachios debuted as a consumer brand.The company’s $30-million nationally integrated marketing campaign, Get Crackin’, capitalizes on consumer interest by enlisting viral sensations (Honey Badger), iconic characters (the Peanuts Gang) and pop culture celebrities (Snooki and Snoop Dogg) to promote its brand in their own unique, light-hearted ways.
In its first year, The Nielsen Company placed two (out of eight) Wonderful Pistachios’ commercials on its list of top 10 news ads. Now in its fourth year, the campaign continues to be a big hit among consumers and has transformed Wonderful Pistachios from a commodity into a brand that is a social media star in its own right — with more than 330,000 fans on Facebook and close to 12 million views of its commercials on YouTube by last count.
“Social Media is no longer just an option for consumer goods companies. We have embraced the digital space and the consumer within social media channels and have extended this to our traditional mediums,” says Marc Seguin, vice president of Marketing for Paramount Farms, POM Wonderful and Paramount Citrus. “For most, the strategy is the other way around, beginning with traditional and translating into digital.”
Behind the Scenes
Behind the company’s Get Crackin’ campaign is a fine-tuned social media discipline that takes great measure to ensure Paramount Farms reaches target consumers in spaces where they’re already engaged, and more importantly, listens to what consumers are saying about its products and brands.An internal team covers everything from online marketing, digital strategy, community management, content development, search/SEO and more for its respective brands. Community managers monitor the brand’s social media channels to hear what consumers are saying, and while they may not be able to answer every single question or comment, they strive to engage in real-time conversations with consumers and show they are listening. Those interactions could involve various actions — from responding to a question about a product, sharing content like videos or recipes, promoting contests and giveaways, or even just thanking them for sharing their love for the products.
“We want consumers to feel good about our products whether it’s cracking pistachios or snacking on almonds, and we find that many of them are eager to share their experiences with us online,” says Seguin.
Identifying influencers and brand evangelists through social media monitoring and analytics is also a priority. That way, Paramount Farms can determine which consumers are promoting its content and begin to incentivize and reward them to create lasting and valuable relationships.
At the same time, the company keeps in mind that continuous monitoring, listening and engagement is not necessarily going to make for happy consumers. According to Seguin, the key is to not only listen to your consumers in real time, but ensure that the company is transparent and acts, responds and tailors its strategy moving forward accordingly. When a legitimate consumer complaint about its brands and products does arise, the company looks at it as an opportunity to turn a disgruntled consumer into a brand advocate. Similarly, if someone has a negative comment about the Get Crackin’ ad campaign, the company assures the consumer that he or she has been heard and reiterates that the commercials include characters for pistachio fans of all ages, so of course, not everyone will agree with or like each one.An added benefit of having an active and loyal fan base is that Paramount Farms does not typically have to engage in one-on-one interactions with what Seguin describes as “Internet trolls” who are not interested in meaningful, transparent engagement and would rather just provoke other consumers or brands into a reaction. Rather, consumer advocates for Wonderful Pistachios often step in, unprompted, to engage in discussion threads in support of the brand.
Listening Beyond the Brand
Due to the nature of the Get Crackin’ campaign, it is particularly important that the company stays up to date on consumer interests and trends beyond those that relate directly to its products and brands.
For example, when Paramount Farms witnesses content sharing surrounding a new Internet phenomena, like Keyboard Cat or Honey Badger, it acts fast to leverage and integrate them into its Get Crackin’ campaign (see “The Power of the Meme” sidebar at the end of this article).
Similarly, Wonderful Pistachios’ Super Bowl XLVII commercial played off of the viral nature of PSY’s 2012 hit video “Gangnam Style”, which is the first YouTube video to break one billion views. The commercial marked the first time that the rapper had ever been featured in a U.S. television commercial. It was also the first commercial wherein Paramount Farms directly integrated a custom hashtag (#crackinstyle).“Because everyone was familiar with PSY as an Internet sensation, using #crackinstyle was a natural way for us to drive consumers back online to find out more about Wonderful Pistachios, connect with other fans, react to the commercial and share,” says Seguin.
Paramount Farms is also keenly focused on seeking new forms of consumer engagement. For instance, Wonderful Pistachios recently created and activated a strategy for Vine, a mobile app that enables its users to create and post short video clips, since it saw a high number of users already using #getcrackin organically in the space.
“We are also moving toward capitalizing on more real-time marketing opportunities as they arise, while remaining very cognizant of when and where it doesn’t make sense for each brand,” says Seguin.
For example, Wonderful Pistachios consumers are fairly young and lead active lifestyles, thus a commercial for the Oscars, which has reportedly struggled to bring in a younger demographic, wasn’t necessarily a good fit for a television spot. Instead, the brand focused its marketing strategy around sporting events, like March Madness, where it has more social relevance and could act as an authority on snacking.
Going forward, Seguin will infuse Paramount Farms’ sister brands, like POM Wonderful and Cuties California Clementines, with the holistic marketing best practices he developed for Wonderful Pistachios.
“The goal for all of our brands is to develop campaigns that are integrated across all platforms,” he says. “If we want to reach new consumers, we have to stay relevant and continue to drive engagement as we build brand awareness and household penetration of our products. Social/mobile/digital is the key to our continued success.”
Company at a Glance: Part of Roll Global LLC, Paramount? Farms ?is? the ?world’s ?largest vertically integrated? supplier of? pistachios? and? almonds. The company launched Wonderful?Pistachios in July 2008, and quickly proved that it is possible to turn a commodity product into a successful consumer brand with the right marketing strategy. The brand’s Get Crackin’ campaign enabled Wonderful Pistachios to crack into the top five of grocery store salty snacks in under five years.
The Power of the Meme
Internet memes are cultural symbols and social ideas that spread virally. Paramount Farms’ Get Crackin’ campaign has tapped some of the most popular Internet memes of all time — like Honey Badger and Keyboard Cat — to give its commercials instant recognition among consumers. Sales increased 233 percent after its first batch of viral videos were released in 2008, and the Honey Badger commercial was the 57th most shared advertisement in 2011, beating out ads from Skittles and Pepsi.
Power Combo
International pop sensation, PSY, starred in Wonderful Pistachios’ first-ever Super Bowl spot in 2013. PSY hit the American music scene last year when his quirky “Gangnam Style” music video became the first YouTube video ever to break one billion views.
Get the Whole Story
Marc Seguin will provide more details about Paramount Farms’ “social discipline” live at the 2013 Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Summit, June 3-5 in NYC. Visit consumergoods.com/2013-sales-marketing-summit for event and registration information.