Eggceptional ideas can yield eggstraordinary results.
But what if you don’t have millions to spend on stunts?
Last week we talked about Volvo Trucks and their brilliant, stunning, gleefully hilarious Live Event series that generated huge amounts of fame (and sales) for their innovative line of large trucks and vehicles.
Today we’re going to talk about using fame campaigns to command attention and amplify reach on a much, much smaller budget.
Let’s talk chickens.
In Australia, the egg market is dominated by three major producers. Honest Eggs Co. is not one of them.
They have less than 1% market share, and their eggs cost about 50% more than the bigger brands.
That’s because Honest Eggs Co. practices something called regenerative farming.
Instead of optimizing for efficiency at scale, regenerative farming focuses on improving the health and quality of farm soil, increasing biodiversity and protecting local waterways. Important? Yes. Exciting? Uh, sure.
The business objective: Honest Eggs Co. wanted to sell more eggs and grow market share so they could purchase more land to raise more chickens.
The business problem: Most consumers have never heard of regenerative farming, and most people don’t care how it works or why it’s better. Explaining it at people doesn’t help.
And while people might care where their eggs come from, they definitely care about price.
Let’s say you have two cartons of eggs from two different brands in front of you.
One is $6. The other is $9. Both cartons are labeled “Free Range.” Which eggs do you choose?
That might depend on what “Free Range” means to you.
You might imagine happy chickens running around doing happy chicken stuff — scratching, pecking, clucking, eating bugs, vibing, living their best chicken lives. And for Honest Eggs Co., that’s entirely true.
But “Free Range” isn’t the same on every farm.
In Australia at least, Free Range means a farm can have up to 10,000 chickens per hectare. A hectare is 2.47 acres or 10,000 square meters. Each chicken really only has a single square meter to dig for food, peck, scratch and poop. That’s not great for the chickens … or the land.
Legally these chickens can be labeled “free range,” but are they?
Honest Eggs Co. has just 30 chickens per hectare, which means their chickens actually have room to roam. They eat a more varied, balanced and natural diet. They get much more exercise. Their eggs are tastier and more nutritious.
Honest Eggs Co. realized they didn’t need to educate their audience about regenerative farming.
They had to show people what “Free Range” really means.
But how do you tell that story in an engaging way? How do you make that fun? How do you get people to pay attention?
The solution? FitChix — the world’s first activity tracker for chickens.
Yes, it’s a Fitbit for chickens.
They developed these custom, wearable step counter/GPS devices and put them on their hens.
Here’s the extra clever part: Honest Eggs Co. prints the average number of steps their hens take each day directly on their eggs.
That’s powerful and tangible proof that their chickens are truly free to wander.
It turns out Honest Eggs Co.’s chickens take an average of 21,000+ steps each day, which is apparently three times more than the average Australian.
It’s also a brilliant way to redefine and own the phrase “Free Range.”
They turned one of their hens — Henrietta — into a mascot/spokeschicken. She stars in a few of their videos. They also had the incredible idea to set up a Strava account, so people could track her travels.
Was the campaign effective?
Absolutely.
FitChix delivered over $40 million in earned media with a 25% increase in sales and a 40% increase in retail grocery orders.
What does this mean for you?
Before Honest Eggs Co. could redefine what “Free Range” really means, they had to get noticed. They only had a budget of $30,000, which means they had to get clever. “What if a Fitbit for chickens?” is fantastically clever.
Fame campaigns like FitChix cut through the noise. They surprise and delight your audience.
Yes, watching chickens run through a field is surprisingly delightful. And fame campaigns harness the power of earned media to amplify reach.
Fame, feeling, fluency. Mental availability and distinctiveness. That’s how brands grow. And there are really only two ways to do it.
You can play a dull, predictable game that only category leaders can win.
Or you can play a smart, surprising, entertaining, emotionally driven, empirically proven, fame-building kind of game.
We’ll take a look at another fame campaign case study next week.
See you then.
Sources! –
Measuring advertising’s effect on mental availability _ WARC.pdf