Its Not Delivery, Its Twitter!
Posted April 9th, 2009 by
Jason Douglas
Spyder Trap Online Marketing
Yesterday, AdAge wrote about Kraft ‘s DiGiorno brand is launching a flatbread pizza line, and they are planning on using Twitter to do so. DiGiorno will be searching for Twitter users known as “influencers,” then delivering food to tweetups that are attended by people they deem as influencers.
This is not the first time that a product has been used with social media. Some of you may remember when Ford gave away 100 cars for a few months to “influencers” with the hope that positive buzz would spread throughout the social media world and turn into revenue. What real return did Ford get from that campaign?
There are other questions to consider here:
1) What return is expected from the twitter part of their campaign? I have attended a few tweetups; the average attendance in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area is around 40 twitter users. With the reach that Kraft and DiGiorno have, it is possible that more people would show up knowing food was provided. Even if 100 people show up to a tweetup, when does the idea show the ROI Kraft is looking for?
2) DiGiorno’s tagline: ‘It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno’. The whole point of the Twitter campaign is to deliver pizza to a tweetup. Does this go against their philosophy and how they have positioned their product?
3) How is Kraft determining who is an influencer? Kraft has hired Minneapolis-based agency Weber Shandwick to ‘reach out to the influential Twitter users who are willing to host tweetups in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Tom Moe, director of marketing for the DiGiorno brand, when talking about what makes an influential twitter user: “(that) is something we’re in the process of working out with the folks at Weber.” Am I considered an influential person on twitter because I have near 500 followers? DiGiorno and Weber Shandwick have an interesting task here.
Will the Twitter aspect of their campaign work? If this shows a high level of success, will other companies follow suit, sponsoring tweetups and other social media networking events?
Tags: AdAge, Brand Monitoring, DiGiorno Pizza, Online Marketing, Product Launch, Social Media, Tweetups, Twitter
6 Responses to “Its Not Delivery, Its Twitter!”
April 10th, 2009 at 9:19 am
I was surprised to see the negative comments on the AdAge post.
I don’t consider myself to be an influencer, but I am a consumer. Like many consumers, I generally enjoy pizza and will probably buy the new DiGiorno next time I see it in the store because of reading this post.
Regarding tweetups for them, it seems like a pretty slick idea and don’t really see it as something against their philosophy. I’m guessing it would go over well in the Mpls/St. Paul area.
Anyway, my 2 cents. Nice read!
April 10th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I’ve got to commend DiGiorno for its (their?) approach to tweetups. DiGiorno gets the benefit of creating a buzz in a room full of people who will most likely share the experience with their various numbers of followers as soon as the pizza arrives (and DiGiorno doesn’t have to go to the extent of an all-out Tweetup sponsorship). In terms of ROI, if DiGiorno drops off four or five $7 pizzas and each of those 40 Twitterers tweets about it to their networks ranging from 40 followers to 4,000, the ROI could be extremely worthwhile.
I will say, however, that some of our local Twitterers had a tweetup in Sioux Falls last night and no pizza made its way to our event. So…now I’m just mad at DiGiorno for not coming through for us. I have a feeling Sioux Falls probably isn’t on their hot list though, so I won’t expect much on that front. Like Paul said, I’m guessing it’ll go over well in the bigger cities, especially when people are meeting at 5 or 6 and having beers but not wanting to sit around and eat full dinner meals at a tweetup.
On the Ford front, if you’re referring to the Fiesta Movement, I’m interested to see how that goes as well. My boss happens to be one of the 100 chosen “Fiesta Agents” and he’s definitely hyped up his excitement in the Sioux Falls area like there’s no tomorrow. I’m not sure how much of a payoff it’ll have for Ford, but he’s talking about the whole experience like it’s the greatest thing in the world. If he truly is as much of an “influencer” as Ford apparently thinks he is, there will be plenty of Sioux Fallsians who take an interest in the Ford Fiesta. If that’s Ford’s purpose with the whole effort, I’m guessing they’ll have a chance to be pretty successful with it.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Paul, I hope that DiGiorno does have a few in the Mpls/St. Paul area. We are a large enough area with plenty of influencers that can help their campaign. I find it frustrating when companies assume by going to only the New York’s and the L.A.’s of the world, they will get everything they need to know to spread to the rest of the United States. I can see this becoming a trend, having companies sponsor tweetups. There is a fine line companies will encounter; how visible should they be at the events? How strong will their pitch be to the attendees?
Mike, I agree with you about the ROI. DiGiorno’s initial investment is very minimal: pizzas, a few tweets, press release, and possibly some traditional marketing tools. If DiGiorno’s will not come to the Mpls/St. Paul area, good luck on getting them to Sioux Falls. As I mentioned above, there are more opinions to know than the ones that come from the top two or three populated areas. You will have to keep me posted about your boss and his experience as a ‘Fiesta Agent’. Their ROI is more difficult to measure. How many cars will they have to sell at X price to break even?
April 10th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
It seems like nothing but good things on this concept to me. They are already getting their product mentioned (AdAge & This post), Paul’s buying pizzas now, Tweet-ups get some ‘Za … and it can only increase.
As the above comments stated, the cost is a few pizzas and time. All upside if you ask me.
I hope they don’t miss the boat though. I’d consider everyone on Twitter an influencer, not just a 1k or 10k follow list. The masses are still not Tweeting (yet) and those that are are connected in other places. Tweets showing up on Facebook statuses, blogs, web pages and more. Twitter has plenty of “bleed” so I hope they are thinking all of that through. It’s a great opportunity. Great idea.
BTW, their stuffed crust Pepperoni is my favorite. I crush that thing.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:29 am
Jason,
I like the post and the interesting questions posed within…but the campaign has already worked to an extent. We did not have DiGiorno at our Sioux Falls tweetup and you may not have any at your MPLS tweetups, but both areas are talking about DiGiorno. I told my former boss tonight at dinner in Omaha about the campaign and he had no idea. That is three cities they have not directly targeted but got the message out (on a small scale).
As Mike pointed out, these pizzas do not cost Kraft much to give away and the idea has inspired a mass of blog posts this week and will get news coverage. Twitter users in the cities mentioned will go to tweetups to try the pizza because of the publicity. If it is tasty, the campaign will work (further).
I think sponsoring Twitter-driven events is gold. People on Twitter love conversing and sharing ideas/opinions. If you sponsor their events, they will inevitably talk about it. Take the T’Wolves and SW Airlines for example – both sponsored tweetups in MPLS and both got heavy conversation for doing so. The talk wasn’t just about the tweetup either.
I bet we will have answers soon, but thank you for allowing us to speculate.
April 13th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Scott raises a good point. We’re all talking about it and DiGiorno currently doesn’t have any plans to come around here. I know there’s one person at WS who attends all sorts of different social media events although don’t know if he’ll be working with DiGiorno.
I’d love to see them hit Sioux Falls. It’s certainly not a small town. It’s got a number of colleges and I understand that it’s really tech-savvy. I think SF would be a great example.
Side note, I bought one this weekend and would consider the taste “busy”.
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