Wednesday, July 22, 2009

How Freddo, an 80-year old frog, broke the mold - twice

On July 6, Cadbury launched its Freddo campaign, featuring Freddo’s first adventure: The Secret of the Golden Keys.

Freddo is the brainchild of Harry Melbourne, a chocolate mold maker at MacRobertson Chocolates, who told his boss in 1930 that frog-shaped chocolate would sell better than those shaped like mouse (the original concept). After making a sample and send to management, the marketing manager declared it a winner and history in the shape of Freddo, was born.

Eighty years later, more than 100 million Freddo chocolate frogs in a variety of flavors are produced in Australia each year.

On its 80th birthday, Freddo is hopping into cyberspace with a series of interactive stories and games designed to stimulate and educate children to mark the occasion.

Cadbury (who acquired the Freddo rights in 1965), stated: "We designed The Adventures of Freddo as a free website which aims to educate and entertain children in the digital environment, a medium this generation is so familiar and comfortable with, using a more modern version of the cheeky, loveable frog that their parents and grandparents grew up with."

But not everybody is charmed by Freddo. Activists against junk food advertising claim that it exploits loopholes in the self-regulation system to market chocolate to children.
There are currently three codes regulating the advertising of unhealthy foods to children in Australia:

Cadbury (NYSE: CBY) admits that Freddo chocolates are part of its "pre-teen" product range, but says that the campaign itself does not feature any chocolate, is educational, and encourages an active lifestyle. Cadbury’s marketing motives are clear, and include launching Freddo internationally if he breaks sales records at home in Australia and New Zealand.

Cadbury obviously has a very good legal team on board. Since the Freddo character is a Cadbury trademark and there are no chocolate products showing in the animated films, the company does not appear to be breaching any rules in the various codes. Cadbury cleverly doesn’t actively market to children aged 12 (and under) and thus abides by its own action plan registered under the RCMI (Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative).

Kate Watson, Cadbury’s spokesperson claims: "We're marketing to parents. Parents are the gatekeepers. Kids can't go on the website without parents registering the kids.”

Cadbury (and its legal team) must have been pleased when the Australian Senate voted down a bill down that would have banned junk food advertising to children.

Our 80-year old amphibian friend broke the mold trice, and for sure will keep on enticing the next generation of Australian kids - with the help of its parent Cadbury.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Marketing to the Twitterati - companies that tweet

It seems that global warming doesn’t endanger a new breed of animals: the Twitterati.

These are frequent Twitter users, whose life seems to consist of sending as much tweets and retweets as possible. When running out of tweet content (“still stuck in traffic”, “cannot find my left contact lens”), they retweet other people’s tweets. The “me” factor is so high on Twitter, that Sprint Nextel included a flock of blue twitter birds in one of its cell phone commercials (see illustration).

For those of you, who are not familiar with Twitter, think of a micro-blog. Instead of ample space to write your story (peppered with links and images) you have on Twitter.com a limited character length of 140. As one of my friends puts it: “it’s like writing text messages on your phone, only this time online in a blog."

Companies have also fallen in love with Twitter – big time. Just check out some corporate websites, and you will find “follow us on Twitter” at the bottom of the webpage. Companies embrace Web 2.0 with a passion, also since it makes them look good. But what exactly is Web 2.0?

Web 1.0 was a one-way communication from a company to the www-surfers using a static website. Web 2.0 is bi-directional; website visitors can send info to the company. At first mainly Web 2.0 websites were mainly online shopping sites. The next 2.0 wave consisted of web forms and blogs, followed by social networking communities. LinkedIn is one of the oldest, followed by MySpace and Facebook.

Enter Twitter, where you can express your feelings (or frustrations) in 140 characters or less. Is it a Good Thing for companies, or should Twitterati stick to “who-murdered-Michael-Jackson?”
Individuals can "Me!"-tweet about “going on vacation” or “don’t like my new sweater”. Companies however need to provide value. That’s the crux of the matter - any serious company must tweet about a product proposition. Many are too lazy and just put shortened URLs to their press releases in their tweets. If you are too much “Me!” as a company, you will be ignored by the Twitterati and not be retweeted.

What excites Twitterati and makes them to read a corporate tweet?

  1. Lead for new jobs

  2. Cool (free!) downloads

  3. Hot news about the company linked to a current event

  4. Great articles about an industry or area of interest (target your Twitterati!)

  5. Links to interesting newsletters or magazine articles

  6. Information about network/media events

  7. Links to funny cartoons or clips

  8. Links to great blog postings

To leverage Twitter, companies must be smart. They need to define their target group, offer tailored tweet content with a value proposition, and keep up the effort to maintain a Twitter presence.