Jul08
04
Stork Comes Round
On 12 November 2006 I published a post on this blog and later repurposed it for Biz-Community commenting on how I thought Stork had missed the point completely with their “blogging housewife” 30 second spot for TV. After my Biz-Community article went live I got a call from Unilever’s agency, McCann’s, to set up a meeting and explore the possibility of acting on what I had suggested. I was pretty chuffed they’d listened, put my ideas to the agency who subsequently presented to Unilver.
Unilever’s answer? Loosely quoted, “we’re not sure blogging will translate to business”.
This after spending who knows how much on producing the blogging ad and flighting it hundreds of times. Crikey.
Anyhow, I let it rest on the understanding that they were probably not going to shift, and besides, I had gotten pretty busy on some other accounts.
I use the Stork ‘Half-baked’ attempt at piggy-backing the social media trend as a classic ‘how not to’ in my presentations, but can’t anymore - it seems they’ve come around.
Longtail have developed foodcrEATions for them - “an interactive kitchen to share ideas, inspirations and tips about cooking, crafts and life”. It’s a good looking site in the early stages of adoption but it has super potential - congrats to Japie and team.
I’d like to believe the seed I planted a year and a half ago got either Stork or Longtail thinking and where I lacked the conviction to try and move the Unilever juggernaut they chased it up. It’s good news alround for the industry and shows a significant commitment on the part of a major South African brand to engage customers in exciting new ways.
Keep using it as a case study Mike, I think this development makes it an even stronger point. November 2006 to July 2008 …. any opportunity to kickstart the community on the back of the tv ad has left the building. At least they are doing something though
Hi Mike,
I covered the foodcreations site when it came out.
SA’s First Foodie Social Networking Site by Stork
Following a similar route as to one of Unilever’s other brands Knorr with their whatsfordinner.co.za website. But only thing is foodcreations.co.za is focused on a social network type of site to get foodies interacting with one another.
It is a very good move in my book, I hope they increase awareness through their other media activities as well. Foodcreations.co.za is only a very small part of a very big campaign which stork is doing.
I have interviewd the agency and I am busy interviewing the brand manager… so hopefully will get a better view up soon
M.
Well done, who knows what other seeds you have planted, that are just waiting to germinate. It does take time for people to come round but sometimes they just never do, well not in our lifetime. So we just keep at it and keep moving along.
Hi Mike great post.
I totally agree with Allan, continue using it as a case study. I mean you couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
The only thing I see here that sucks is that Stork didn’t have the decency to give you any credit
Np thats why the blogosphere is here. Well done on a good job @ Mike. keep it up
Hi Mike,
This comment comes a little while after all the hype and comments have gone on about the site, but I have been out of the country on holiday for the last month and am just catching up on all my reading now.
The Unilever “Spreads” Team have really been visionary in embracing the concept and strategy around social networking and the Brand opportunities thereof,that I developed and have overseen the implementation of.
In the few short months since we have taken the site live the results have been more than impressive and our ongoing support campaign in webPR, PPC and Display Advertising campaigns has only just been implemented in the last week.
I, specifically, will be using this as a successful South African Social Media Campaign case study going forward :).
Couldn’t agree more Ingrid. It’s a great example of how a company previously closed to the idea have embraced it since, and I think you guys did a great job in implementing it.
Hi Mike, we loved working on this project and we are happy with the results, as is the client. As ingrid mentioned we have just started our ongoing support campaigns in webPR, PPC and Display Advertising and expect to see some good results, but just to give you a highlight of the current results of the site, here is a snapshot of notible statistics.
Since go-live the site has had just over 12000 visitors and 135000 pageviews. The great things is each visitor remains on the site for an average of 7.5 minutes viewing 11 pages. The split between returning and new visitors is 40% returning and 60% new visitors. Currently there are 1300+ active registered users which is not bad considering that the site has only been up for two months.
Obviously we are continuing our efforts to market the site and we are confident these numbers will grow.
Mentions in blogs and articles also helps and we want to thank you for the mention. I think our client is almost more excited than us about the move of seeing Unilever embracing social networking.