Abstract
Over the years, the usage of social media has been used, not only to connect with our loved ones, but also to communicate all sorts of happenings in our lives. Its increasingly common for organizations to include a heavy dose of social media in their marketing plan. One recent survey of Canadian executives found that 90 percent of social media to communicate with customers. (Solomon, 2013) Slowly but steadily all of these companies have started expanding their customer base using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to name a few. In this report we will be talking about how KitKat and Oreo use their social media platforms to engage with their consumers and promote their brand and products.
Introduction
This report follows KitKat and Oreo’s social media platform for three weeks, and talks about what their usage of these platforms means, and how it affects them. It will talk about how the two companies engage and communicate with their customers, what they talk about, and what is the reaction of the consumers to their marketing styles. This information has also been tabulated following weekly posts and the interaction of the consumers with those posts.
Strategy and Analysis
Channel
When we look at Oreo, the highest post rates for all three weeks studied, were on their Twitter handle, with an average of 4 posts per week, the second highest were YouTube and Instagram, with an average of almost 3 posts per week. The least used media by Oreo was its Facebook page. Facebook was also the only social media platform of Oreo, that had the least amount of posts overall. Dating back to 2 years ago and now, an approximate number of posts were about 45-50 in total. A majority of their twitter posts are visual aids accompanied by a small caption. In their posts they usually stick to the point and have fun with their posts.
On the other hand, when we look at KitKat, its has a bit of a weaker social media usage. Dividing up each platform usage, we get an average of 2 posts per week. We can see that KitKat has a bit of a problem maintaining and updating their social media. While conducting the research, we found that on some platforms during different weeks, KitKat hadn’t posted anything. But then at the same time, during seasonal festivities, the posts and engagement between the company’s social media and its consumers increased significantly. KitKat’s highest used platform, would be Instagram, where they play a lot with visuals and has quite a few appeasing videos about its product and its characteristics.
The only thing common in the social media performance of both of these companies was that during the seasonal festivities, not only did their posts go up, but also the response from their consumer base.
Themes and Content
As mentioned above, the number of posts for Oreo was high on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Some of these posts over the period of three weeks were similar to each other per week on the different social media platforms. However, on YouTube, there were only videos, mostly in the form of advertisements, where Oreo was directly selling their products. Whereas on the other platforms we can see the difference of their approach. On Instagram, they weren’t particularly selling their product, but rather talking about their different products and making them look visually appealing using pictures and short videos. Instruction videos on the proper way to eat an Oreo, pictures demonstrating the aesthetic of an Oreo cookie, trying to make the visual representations lead the individual viewing the post to subconsciously create a need to eat that cookie. Creating needs that initially did not exist. On Twitter, however, Oreo’s posts were mainly short but descriptive. They just stated the different types of Oreo cookies there are, and blatantly just spoke out on how Oreo is the best crème cookie there is. Visual aids depicting how non-crème cookies were not nearly a good as their crème cookies, or even how other crème cookies were no comparison to Oreos.
KitKat’s approach with their social media was somewhat weak. On YouTube and Facebook, they barely had any uploads, not just in the 3 weeks of the study, but overall their social media presence on these platforms was low. Whereas, on Twitter and Instagram, there was better communication from KitKat with its consumers and followers. Specially during the Valentine week, KitKat blasted these two social media platforms with posts combining KitKat and the meaning of love and valentine together as one. It’s a well known fact that chocolate is an aphrodisiac, and so KitKat shows their followers many different ways to use their chocolate to create innovative and romantic desserts for their loved ones as a Valentine treat or gift. However, Twitter and Instagram still don’t have too many posts except for during the seasonal festivities.
When we look at what these companies are trying to do with their posts on the various social media platforms, we see that there are many different takes on the different posts. In some cases Oreo is just selling their product, or talking about how they are the best cookie option. On Twitter, they are also promoting their latest marketing activity ‘Twin to Win’, where people send in pictures that are ‘twinning’, mostly targeted at family and friends, lucky winners get a chance at a 1000 pounds shopping spree or two fashion items from the Oreo clothing line. Since it is targeted for the UK market, they are using star influencer Sam Faiers to advertise this, with her niece Nelly. They are shown in twinning clothing from the fashion line up that Oreo launched, in partnership with a creatives agency Elvis, in January this year. Side by side, Oreo is also conducting a vote asking people to tell them which is their favourite Oreo cookie. The options depict the different types of Oreo cookies there are, decided by their stuffing. Oreo Thins, Original, Double Stuff, Mega Stuff and Most Stuff.
KitKat used their social media to talk about the different range of products they have recently launched, like the Dark KitKat, or KitKat Gold. They also used their chocolates as a symbol of love. Consumption of chocolates release endorphins in the brain, which creates a feeling of happiness and/or love. Hence KitKat, uses their products as a symbol of love and their advertisements and posts on social media during the period of Valentines increased as compared to the rest of the weeks that KitKat’s social media was studied. Recently KitKat also partnered with John Lewis, to create a range of ‘bespoke’ handmade KitKats.
Both the companies are very engaging with their consumers, specially on Facebook and Twitter. They very often retweet posts that have been put up by their consumers about the products. They also respond to many of these tweets and other uploads by their consumers to create a friendly and engaging atmosphere between the company and the consumers. This type of communication really helps in building trust and relations between the brands and its consumers.
Influencers
As important as it is for companies to use social media for their branding and marketing strategies and goals. It is equally important for them to use influencers to promote their brand, their products, and in turn their overall sales. An influencer can be defined as any personality that has a strong social following and people are willing to listen to because of various reasons. An endorsement by an influencer helps the brand form a personality that is similar to that of the endorser of the brand. An influencer can be a celebrity actor/actress, singer, politician or even a social influencer who promotes a certain type of lifestyle. Non-celebrity influencers have recently become a very big target for people to follow, because individuals feel that they can relate more to the people who, like them, are not from a luxurious background and don’t have the fame that celebrities do. However, a celebrity influencer is just as credible. Brands usually try to get influencers for their companies, who’s personality they feel resonates or they want relating to their brand. For example, George Clooney endorses Nespresso, a company that would like the people to feel it, just like its endorser, has a good personality, is classy and all round loving.
As mentioned above, Oreo is using Sam Faiers as an influencer for their most recent marketing strategy, the ‘Twin to Win’. KitKat is using social influencers like Tally Rye, a personal trainer, and Elle, a fashion blogger, to advertise their product on YouTube. They use these influencers for short videos, that an individual can watch while munching on a KitKat bar, and learn something new on their phone or pads easily. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian, have also tweeted and re-tweeted posts about both these brands talking about their favourite products from their brands, which have further been re-tweeted by these brands as a tactic to increase their brand awareness. People who follow these celebrities, look at their posts and start following these brands and make them a part of their shopping lists just to feel a similarity to their idols. Both the brands should focus on using these celebrities and influencers to endorse their brands and products, based on the endorsers personal choices as well.
Conclusion
After following and studying these brands and their social media platforms, we can see that they are not only advertising their products but also, however old their brand is, they are still constantly creating brand awareness. We can see that both these brands make an effort to communicate and engage with their audience. They make sure that they too are contributing to the relationship between them (the brand) and their consumers.
However, I feel that Oreo should make more use of their Facebook platform to engage with its consumers. In its YouTube platform, Oreo has the opportunity to be more creative with some of their adverts and also can make it more engaging using technology to make more of an entertaining advert for themselves.
KitKat has to increase their usage of the YouTube platform. There were only one or two posts per week, and even before that the brand had intermittent posts on their page. KitKat overall has a bad social media presence, because they are very random with their posting. Other than the seasonal posts, a majority of the time they haven’t been regular with their posts on any of their social media platforms.
Looking at their use of ‘influencer marketing’ both these brands have been very irregular with the usage of any one particular influencer. They both use influencers for very specific marketing aspects. Which in one look is useful, but at the same time having a few influencers or celebrities endorsing the brand and its products would be very useful in creating a general buzz for these brands. Even though both of these brands are old, new content and endorsements for advertising their different products will only be beneficial for them.