The brand used creators, local pride and voting to drive participation.
America’s 250th birthday served as a major cultural moment this summer. It was also a fairly obvious opportunity for brands to create something fun or meaningful.
Hellmann’s had an idea that connected the anniversary to something people could link to its mayonnaise: the U.S. has an official bird, tree and flag, but no official sandwich.
This became the basis for America’s Sandwich, a nationwide campaign asking consumers to vote on which sandwich should represent the country. Hellmann’s enlisted creators to champion sandwiches from different states and built a bracket-style competition around the results.
“We thought of a lot of different ways to go about this campaign,” said Brent Lukowski, senior marketing director for condiments in the U.S. at Unilever. “One thing we realized is that it’s not our job to dictate or decree, ‘This should be America’s sandwich.’ The way we should approach it is to let the American people decide what should represent America’s favorite sandwich.”
The company’s strategy offers several useful takeaways for brands planning around major cultural moments.
- Find a unique part of the conversation your brand can own
Big cultural moments create crowded marketing calendars, Lukowski said. Brands need more specific points of entry into the conversation, he said.
Hellmann’s narrowed America’s 250th birthday down to one question that fit directly with its product: What should be America’s official sandwich?
“America doesn’t have an official sandwich, which just seemed criminal for something that’s so quintessentially American,” Lukowski said. “That was the kind of genesis of the idea, and we built it up from there.”
The plan gave the brand a unique, but genuine avenue to celebrate the moment.
Communicators should examine overlooked parts of a cultural conversation, something that naturally connects to their organization. For example, a financial institution could use graduation season to focus on the financial decisions new grads face, or a healthcare organization could use a big sporting event to talk about injury prevention. The more niche or narrow the idea, the stronger role the brand has in standing out among its competition.
- Use local identity to expand a national campaign
Hellmann’s turned its national competition into tons of smaller conversations by organizing the campaign around sandwiches associated with different states, which gave people a personal reason to care about the outcome.
“Knowing the importance of place in people’s lives and how passionate different parts of the country are, maybe for their favorite sandwich, we wanted to open up that aperture,” Lukowski said.
This structure also created more storytelling opportunities. Regional data, local traditions, employees or customers can all give a national campaign a different lens without changing the core message, he said.
A national campaign is made stronger when audiences can see their own communities reflected. Including a local layer gives communicators more stories to tell, more people who can share the message and more reasons for audiences to participate.
- Give creators something to argue for
Hellmann’s asked creators to champion specific sandwiches and make the case for why those choices deserved attention.
@grant_gillon I’m representing Iowa in Hellmann’s search for America’s Sandwich. #HellmannsPartner ♬ original sound – Grant Gillon
This gave them a role in the story rather than just handing them a script to repeat. It also gave their audience something to agree with, challenge or defend, Lukowski said.
“Creator partnerships work better when participants have a clear point of view,” he said.
Brands should set parameters while still giving creators room to bring their own perspective, which makes content feel less like a handoff of brand messaging and more like an actual conversation.
- Build repeat participation into the structure
Hellmann’s chose a bracket format that created multiple opportunities for people to vote, react and come back to see if their choice was winning.
This goes beyond basic engagement, Lukowski said.
“In this algorithm-driven world, (giving people a reason to come back) can actually help with your broader awareness objectives as well and getting eyeballs and impressions on your content,” Lukowski said. “And this just felt like a campaign that’s really built for that mechanism.”
A strong participatory campaign should not depend on one audience action, he said.
Each round of the bracket created another reason to publish, vote and debate. The campaign changed as the audience made choices and so did their stories.
Communicators can apply the same principle with polls, rankings, submissions or challenges. The structure should create new content as people interact with it.
- Design the campaign with follow-ups
Hellmann’s launched America’s Sandwich on July 7 with Food Network personality Jeff Mauro, known as the “Sandwich King,” alongside organic social, paid media and creator content.
@jeffreymauro As the Sandwich King, I’ve got one mission: help America find its official sandwich. Voting opens 7.13 at the link in my bio #HellmannsPartner @Hellmann’s Mayonnaise @bestfoodsmayonnaise ♬ original sound – Jeff Mauro
The launch video reached 500,000 views within three days, Lukowski said, and the campaign collected thousands of votes, with the final results announced this week: Pennsylvania’s Philly Cheesesteak edged out Kansas’ Burnt Edge sandwich
The bracket-style format created ongoing developments, and Hellmann’s plans to cap the campaign with a final celebration around the winning sandwich, which gives the team new reasons to keep telling the story.
A cultural campaign should have a clear second, third and final act before it launches, Lukowski said. The audience’s actions can help steer those moments.
“For us, engagement was one of the top (objectives) here,” Lukowski said. “It made sense to have this live on social and encourage consumer participation.”
The post 5 ways Hellmann’s stood out among America’s 250th campaigns this summer appeared first on PR Daily.
