Ocean Spray created a campaign that brought snackers back into convenience stores amid the pandemic by using targeted mobile advertising providing consumers with information about its products' precise location in a shoppers' local convenience store.
Objective:
While the first half of 2020 required marketers to adapt and evolve to the changing demands of consumer behavior, the latter months were defined by anticipating consumer needs as they settled into the "new normal." Having both social and financial impacts, the pandemic shifted the priorities and shopping behaviors of consumers. As they became increasingly homebound and price-conscious, these evolving behaviors posed a challenge for brands who had to adapt their media channels and break through the clutter to safely drive consumers in stores.
Alongside the evolution of shopping patterns, similar to the focus in prioritizing selfcare to relieve stress and anxiety, these behaviors appeared to inspire an increase in demand for chocolate to lift spirits during these challenging times. Later in 2020, a survey conducted by InMarket found that 25 percent of consumers increased their chocolate consumption during the pandemic and 35 percent favored chocolate paired with fruit. Keeping both these challenges and opportunities in mind, Ocean Spray sought to create a targeted and innovative ad campaign, highlighting its various summer snack products.
Given the unprecedented shift in consumer behaviors, Ocean Spray partnered with InMarket to create a campaign that would allow them to share alluring creative, and monitor success in real-time. Measured through impressions, click-through-rate (CTR), and behavioral lift, Ocean Spray aimed to understand consumer behavior through every step of the purchase process by leveraging InMarket's location-targeting technology to bolster consumer engagement and lure them to the snack aisles.
Target Audience:
From hikers to beach-goers to snackers, the campaign targeted people looking for on-the-go snacks as they took advantage of the summer weather. Given the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign also attempted to reach consumers spending more time snacking at home through its alluring creatives.
Creative Strategy:
Ocean Spray utilized a call-to-action that incorporated information about the product's exact location in a shopper's local convenience store. Highlighting the alluring imagery of the product itself and key product information, Ocean Spray used the unique medium to elevate the brand's traditional messaging.
Leveraging InMarket's insights on consumer behavior, Ocean Spray understood the importance of consumers quickly finding the products in stores. Featuring the essential information shoppers would need when searching for the product in a convenience store down to the specific aisle, the creatives leveraged InMarket's location-based tools to streamline the purchase process. Allowing consumers to easily engage with the creative to find the precise location of the product in their nearest stores, Ocean Spray aimed to adapt their media strategy to the evolving shopping habits. Alongside the ability to incorporate this key product information, through InMarket's technology, Ocean Spray was able to monitor the success of the campaign in real time to optimize results.
Context:
Before partnering with InMarket, Ocean Spray focused the majority of its marketing spend on traditional media channels. Likewise, the brand continued to gear its messaging toward its roots in agriculture. Given the importance of Ocean Spray's heritage on the brand's campaigns, leveraging InMarket's platforms provided Ocean Spray with the opportunity to adapt its strategy to effectively reach consumers without having to abandon its principle messaging and imagery. Pairing vibrant imagery and messaging with a more targeted approach for the summer campaign, the brand saw significant boosts in engagement across the ads, as well as a significant behavioral lift.
Overall Campaign Execution:
By partnering with InMarket, Ocean Spray gained access to InMarket's comprehensive location-based data, targeted audiences, real-time execution capabilities and attribution/analytics reporting, which proved to be instrumental in precisely targeting consumers at their exact moment of need while driving strong return on advertising spend. Eliminating the hassle of searching for the snacks among the brand's competitors, the mobile creative sought to drive awareness, consideration, and purchase for the product by creating engaging user experiences throughout the customer journey and simplifying the purchase process. The ads drove awareness and consideration by highlighting product information and the precise location to the closest stores, down to the aisle of where a customer could find and purchase the product. Shoppers could also easily click-through additional product information, further encouraging purchase.
Mobile Execution:
Ocean Spray's campaign aimed to precisely target consumers with an alluring creative to stand out in a highly-concentrated market. By leveraging InMarket's location-based GeoLink technology, the company tapped advanced algorithms, combining location behavior with up to 1,000 other offline and online attributes, to better understand consumer motivations.
For mobile execution, Ocean Spray utilized InMarket's proprietary Software Development Kit (SDK) location network of nearly 50 apps, including its owned and operated apps, to serve real-time ad experiences while a consumer is in the purchase process. The result was ad experiences that drove engagement rates 6.5 times higher than Wordstream Google Display Benchmarks for Mobile Media. InMarket's insights and Moments platform enabled the ad to be differentiated in the market through its precision and interactive qualities. The Ocean Spray ad varied based on the consumer's location to ensure they received the most relevant product information throughout the customer journey.
Ocean Spray has been a leader across the agricultural and food industries for decades. As a brand deeply rooted in its heritage and tradition and a commitment to creating good and nutritious food with over 1,000 great-tasting products across over 100 countries, Ocean Spray has helped preserve the family farming way of life for generations. Despite its long-standing legacy, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the brand needed to find a way to break through the competition and draw snackers back into stores.
During a time when many shoppers remained at home, this breakthrough moment succeeded in driving people to the convenience store snack aisle. Through both the alluring imagery and the call-to-action, Ocean Spray's creative ad piqued the interest of viewers, amassing a click-through rate of 7.54 percent, which is 12.6 times higher than the industry benchmark. In addition to this significant boost in impressions and CTR, the brand's decadent imagery and precise product information inspired audiences to swarm their local convenience stores, as Ocean Spray also experienced at 10.03 percent behavioral lift during the campaign.
The summer campaign revealed the importance of leveraging real-time insights to understand who their consumers are, precisely where they go, how often they go, and how long they stay as well as to pinpoint the best ways to reach Ocean Spray's respective target audiences. Increasing consumer engagement and driving higher ROAS, Ocean Spray's campaign showcased the potential of targeted mobile advertising for the brand. Even with their traditional messaging and imagery, the interactive creative broke through the clutter and shattered industry benchmarks.
The campaign's success highlighted the importance of behavioral and location-based targeting, especially during a time in which consumer behaviors are increasingly unpredictable and continue to evolve abruptly. As comprehensive insights aided the brand's understanding of their consumers' shopping and mobile patterns, Ocean Spray developed an advertisement that both effectively reached consumers at each step of the shopping experience and optimized media placements based on the location of their customers. Taking a step further, the insights obtained from the campaign revealed essential information about Ocean Spray's target audiences and marketing tactics that can provide a comprehensive foundation for advertising efforts in the future.
