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Dana Stanley
Greenbook’s Chief Revenue Officer
Categories
December 23, 2021
PepsiCo Creates High Impact Walkers Holiday Ad with Early-Stage Testing
Using Zappi Amplify TV to vet and refine a high-impact holiday ad.
Challenge
In a manner similar to Super Bowl ads in the US, Christmas ads are a huge deal in the UK. The department store John Lewis is credited with starting the tradition with its big-budget, glossy tear-jerkers, which reap rewards in terms of reach, social sharing, and media coverage. Walkers hadn’t previously taken this approach to advertising but, for the holiday season of 2019, the company saw an opportunity to grow its presence.
The campaign aim was to build on an already much-loved campaign around the idea of Walkers crisps being too good to share and to promote their ‘pigs in blankets’ crisps (a seasonal variety). After working with the same celebrity for 20 years, the team also desired to schedule a new celebrity appearance to bring something fresh to the campaign.
The Walkers creative and insights teams had already conducted some research to understand how consumers were feeling during the holiday season, what challenges and tensions they were experiencing, and which celebrities would be a good fit. Based on this, they chose to work with an American singer often referred to as ‘the queen of Christmas’ – a high-profile choice which meant there was a lot of pressure to get this one right.
Solution
The teams rapidly developed a communications idea and put together an animatic (or draft ad). They then turned to Zappi Amplify TV, at this early stage, to test whether the idea was worth progressing.
Unfortunately, the results of the animatic were lackluster. It tested well on some metrics, such as Distinctiveness and Overall Emotion, but poorly on others, such as Watched Full Ad, leading to mediocre scores for Overall Creative Sales Impact (CSI) and Creative Brand Impact (CBI). These two measures indicate how well an ad is likely to perform in the market in terms of sales uplift and brand equity, respectively.
Mediocre was certainly not going to be good enough for this high-profile campaign.
Fortunately, Zappi Amplify TV provided detailed diagnostics, which enabled the Walkers teams to identify key areas they could work on to improve the ad concept. Those areas were:
- Limited watchability: Some consumers found the ad annoying and frustrating. In turn, they were skipping parts and not watching through the end.
- Poor branding: The Walkers brand wasn’t landing. This was a key issue for an ad aimed at building brand equity.
- Social risk: Some consumers felt that the joke in the ad, which was around selfishly taking the crisps, didn’t fit well with the spirit of the holiday.
Outcome
With traditional ad testing solutions, a poor result at this early stage would have meant abandoning the idea and starting from scratch with a new concept. However, based on the detailed and specific insights generated by testing with Zappi Amplify TV, the Walkers teams were able to adjust the creative to increase the Creative Sales Impact and Creative Brand Impact scores and deliver the blockbuster execution that they’d been hoping for.
The final execution, which had a reach of 88% of the total population, gained 18 million online views as well as 250 mentions in mainstream media, an affirmation of just how entertaining and shareable consumers found the ad.
About this case study
Business issue:
- Increase sales
- Build brand equity
- Volume
Methodologies:
- Agile Research, Advertising
- Effectiveness, Increase Sales
Client organization:
PepsiCo’s products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo brand Walkers is one of the UK’s top five consumer package goods brands, making what the company is proud to call the ‘nation’s favorite crisps’.
Client industry: Consumer Packaged Goods
Project year: 2019
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Disclaimer
The views, opinions, data, and methodologies expressed above are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect or represent the official policies, positions, or beliefs of Greenbook.
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