Social Study

This tale brings us Häagen-Dazs and Evian. It’s no surprise each brand has taken unique steps to boost their brand using social media. But has social media boosted their sales?

Generating Buzz-z-z-z

DM News reports that Häagen-Dazs reached out to the Experience Project social site for an audience to help launch its “Help the Honey Bee” campaign.

“The ‘Help The Honey Bee’ campaign, which runs through August, is a new social networking effort that is being used to reach consumers that care about honey bees and connect them with the Häagen-Dazs brand and to educate Häagen-Dazs fans about the dying honey bee populations. To do so, the brand teamed up with ExperienceProject.com (EP) an online social destination centered around social issues. EP already has a group of users concerned about honeybees and this effort targets these consumers. “

We like this project because it’s sustainable, it uses social media for what it does best -- engaging with a niche audience -- and the cause fits their business and their brand. It also goes beyond the Häagen-Dazs micro site to the Experience Project site and offers visitors plenty of content and calls to action. This engages visitors, gets them involved in the cause and spreading the word via Facebook and Twitter. This translates into plenty of opportunities to connect the project to sales metrics.

The Fountain of Youth

There‘s no denying the success of the Evian baby video from a perspective of generating buzz -- with more than 5.5 million views of the international video alone. But do the babies help reinforce the brand? Clearly the video pays off Evian's "Live Young" tagline and there are hooks back to the Evian site. But in six months time will Evian’s target audience remember the video, who made it and, more importantly, will they be buying Evian water?

We love the video for its creativity, and for its ability to cut through the clutter with mass appeal. But would content more directly reinforcing the brand, or perhaps a cause marketing approach, have made more sense?

Business Goals Set the Beat

The success of each program remains to be seen. But the two projects remind us that every social media program should start with a clear goal. And whether a campaign to generate broad awareness like Evian, or a sustainable program to generate word of mouth like Häagen-Dazs is in order, make sure the program includes success metrics. Whether you’re selling ice cream or bottled water, you will be satisfied.