THE DAY WEETABIX AND BEANZ BROKE THE INTERNET

THE PROBLEM:

The Weetabix brand is a British icon, with a rich heritage and 96% prompted awareness.  But spontaneous awareness and relevance was not where it should be for a brand with such credentials.  We had to find a way to make Weetabix spring to the front of shoppers’ minds more readily.

One way to do this is to simply outspend the competition, but they had deeper pockets.  Weetabix had to think differently…

THE SOLUTION:

Boost relevance by looking beyond the traditional.

The Weetabix media plan was modernised by layering in social media, broadcaster VoD and radio.  This increased the opportunities Weetabix had to deliver the right message to the right people in the right moment.

At the same time, I created a culture of brave marketing in the department.  This, combined with the appointment of a new social media agency pushed the boldness of the brand’s content.

This highlight of this strategy was the famous ”Beans on ‘bix” tweet which broke the internet on 9 February 2021 – generating 1.3 billion impressions, and 6m engagements from a social media pile on including over 600 brands. 

THE RESULTS:

The results were spectacular.  According to YouGov the brand doubled it’s “talkability.” sspontaneous awareness of Weetabix grew by 39%, and value sales increased by 9% vs the previous year. And Beanz on ‘bix was voted Campaign of the Year in 2021 by Marketing Week.

Not bad for £1,000, strategy and a dollop of bravery.