Conversation: Orbit’s Social Media Campaigns

This article is about a series of conversations sponsored by Brandwatch, covering all facets of social media. To see a full list of the conversations that have taken place, click here for our archive.

Click here to listen to the conversation in full

Some of the world’s brands have taken an age to adapt to the advent of social media, whilst others have thrived with the new opportunities it has afforded.

The variance in outlook and approach regarding social media can be the different that makes a company sink or swim online. One success story in this realm is the case of baseball-famous chewing gum giants, Wrigley.

Neil Glassman of WhizBangPowWow sat down with Jennifer Jackson Luth, who is Senior Manager of North American Corporate Affairs at Wrigley, to discuss the Wrigley-owned Orbit social media campaigns.

Luth talks about a number of things in the conversation, stressing the importance of taking a holistic approach to social media and of making brand advocates online.

Their most recent campaign is a unique Facebook-centered competition. The contest invites users to like the Orbit Facebook page in order to apply, a classic incentive to drive brand fans. Individuals are then entered into the competition as the app generates some Orbit packaging based on the user’s Facebook timeline.

Entrants are then free to modify the artistic packaging to create their own personal masterpiece. Next, a series of voting will take place in order to determine sixty winners, which will then see a full release on retail packets of Orbit in shops.

Luth describes how she recruited design students for a spotlight series, which helped her create high quality packaging for an initial promotion run, allowing future entrants to see how the final product might look and to spread the word about the competition.

Campaigns such as this, as well as previous other successes have helped establish Orbit as a major brand, one which has transcended simply gum. Luth details how fans mimicked their ‘Dirty to Clean’ commercials by replacing expletives with crazy terms, like in their advert, and suggests that people like engaging with the brand as it has now become a pop culture icon.

Towards the end of the conversation, Glassman presses her on how Wrigley plans to measure the success of this campaign, as well as how they monitor ROI in general. Listing Facebook page visits, likes, time on page, shares through third-party networking sites, sales spikes and other metrics, Luth finally concludes that most ROI measurement takes place post-campaign.

To listen to the conversation in its entirety, please click here to be taken to the WhizBangPowWow site, where it is hosted.