Dive Brief:
- Hershey has turned to branded videos and carefully calculated video metrics to promote its Ice Breakers Cool Blasts product and determine the efficacy of the online video campaign.
- Working with Visible Measures, Hershey is able to compare the performance of its branded videos in terms of both paid placements and organic views with the competition.
- Metrics include Share of Attention, which measures organic and paid viewership of a brand's videos compared to its competitors, Share of Spend, which includes spending estimates for paid placements, and True Reach, which demonstrates a branded video's reach, accounting for viral sharing beyond paid placements.
Dive Insight:
Ultimately, companies want to know if and how much branded videos are turning into sales dollars. Marty Baker, senior manager of global digital content at The Hershey Co., said that the company is working on programs to track "sales at retail stores," Ad Age reported.
Food and beverage companies have used online video in a myriad of ways to promote their products. Earlier this week, Doritos announced it would use Periscope to share live videos of a campaign for the debut of Doritos Collisions in Canada, wherein people shoot pairs of odd objects at each other through cannons to collide in the middle. Nestle ran the first branded Periscope campaign earlier this year for its Drumstick ice cream brand.
Web series are popular as well. General Mills created a web series to promote the return of its cereal brand French Toast Crunch, which featured 30-second clips of dolls acting out soap opera-worthy scenes. MillerCoors looked to craft beer for inspiration for its web series, which emphasized artisans who handcraft their products and preserve longstanding traditions. Mondelez International introduced its own web sitcom-style series called "Now We're Newtons," which highlighted the brand name change for Fig Newtons to simply Newtons.