McCormick created a gamified ad for French's Mustard to bring a unique experience to its target audience.
Objective:
McCormick was looking to increase awareness for French's Classic Yellow Mustard during the 2021 summer season, as well as to incentivize users to spend time with the brand and learn more about the product.
While both French's consumption and sandwich eating grew during the pandemic, there still remains strong category competition. Additionally, mobile phones hold the No. 1 spot as the most popular gaming device globally. To reach the mobile gaming audience, McCormick focused on mobile in-app gaming exclusively.
The brand tapped Digital Turbine to develop an innovative campaign that would capture the fun, carefree feeling of summer through an interactive game component. To measure brand awareness, the three-month campaign aimed to drive high click-through (CTR) and engagement rates. Partnering with Digital Turbine allowed French's to engage with consumers, driving top of mind awareness and encouraging usage for better tasting sandwiches.
Target Audience:
In order to reach household decision makers, the campaign was targeted toward mobile gamers ages 25 to 54. Popular gaming apps were leveraged as part of the targeting to reach these target audiences.
Creative Strategy:
This campaign brought summer to life by incorporating the classic condiment with favorite family foods. After consumers viewed the video about the product, they were then brought to a screen which showed a conveyor belt with classic American summer foods that pair well with mustard. They were then encouraged to tap the lever and put mustard on their favorite foods before time ran out. For a fun twist, mustard and ice cream were a match as a nod to the Mustard Ice Cream French's introduced a couple years back. The conveyor belt also had foods that did not pair well with mustard — like candy — to give consumers an extra challenge. Giving the users the ability to play a game emphasized the jovial nature of the products and encouraged excitement among the target audiences.
Once the game was done, consumers were shown CTA buttons to replay the game, buy the mustard, and tap for recipes — including one for yellow mustard ice cream — that lead to the McCormick site. This campaign exemplified the carefree feeling of summer while delivering on key KPIs.
Context:
Prior to this campaign, Digital Turbine was a trusted partner to McCormick, having worked on various ad units together including user acquisition campaigns for the brand's Flavor Maker app. After the success of the previous campaigns, McCormick decided to partner with Digital Turbine again to create a gamified ad for French's Mustard to bring a unique experience to their target audience.
Overall Campaign Execution:
The combination of the video and the interactive Dynamic End Card allowed McCormick to drive both top of funnel awareness as well as direct user engagement. By offering a unique gaming experience, users were able to engage with the well-known brand in a new and innovative way, reigniting their love of French's Classic Yellow Mustard. One hundred percent of this campaign's budget was allocated toward mobile devices to reach gamers where they enjoy spending time online.
Mobile Execution:
The campaign brought the sunshine into consumer's smartphones in an interactive way. By utilizing Digital Turbine's Instant Play HD Video and Dynamic End Card technology, the campaign provided the target audience an experience that was both fun and interactive. This effective ad unit drove strong video completion rates and engagement within an immersive mobile environment. With Digital Turbine's Instant-Play HD Video technology, all video is pre-cached in-app, allowing for zero buffer time, resulting in a seamless user experience. Implementing the gamified Dynamic End Card gave users an extra opportunity to engage more with the brand anywhere they ventured over the summer and raise awareness for French's mustard. Digital Turbine's programmatic capabilities and SDK integration into the top 1,000 apps, allowed McCormick to reach its desired target audience within the top mobile gaming apps where the target audience spends significant time.
Context:
Overall condiment usage was increasing as more people were cooking at home during the pandemic. However, mustard category competition remained strong. To reach its mobile gaming target audience and inspire French's Yellow Mustard usage on sandwiches, McCormick partnered with Digital Turbine to engage consumers and drive awareness for the brand in a unique environment to find consumers where they spend the most time online.
Evaluation:
The French's mustard campaign surpassed multiple benchmarks to deliver appetizing results. The overall Instant Play HD Video VCR for the campaign was over 92 percent, surpassing the 80-85 percent Digital Turbine benchmark. The campaign also saw a CTR of over 2 percent. This exceeded Digital Turbine's benchmark of 0.35-0.7 percent for similar units and past campaigns.
Additionally, the dynamic end card garnered a 34 percent engagement rate with an average time spent of 14.46 seconds. Both of these metrics surpassed Digital Turbine benchmarks of 7 to 10 percent and 8 to 10 seconds, respectively.
Digital Turbine also utilized Double Verify technology to ensure that results were authentic, and the campaign remained brand safe. According to third-party data from Double Verify, the overall DV Video viewable rate was over 97 percent, surpassing Digital Turbine's viewability benchmark of 90 percent and DV's benchmark of 93 percent.
Market Impact:
The gamified end card gave consumers an unexpected way to engage with a CPG brand. As a classic brand, French's stepped out of its comfort zone to reach consumers in a new way. With overachieving results in both views and engagement, the campaign proved to be a hit among mobile gamers.
