McDonald’s and Leo Burnett London have launched a campaign called ‘Schnuggs’ celebrating the release of new spicy chicken McNuggets, the latest addition to its menu, available for seven weeks.

The campaign comprises a mixture of food focused content and short films showing models wearing custom made Spicy Chicken McNuggets apparel in aid of the collaboration – Spicy X Chicken McNuggets = Schnuggs. Drawing upon the love of chicken McNuggets, the campaign is targeted at 16-24year olds and aims to tap into the cult-like brands this age group is infatuated by.

With brands like Supreme having consumers queuing outside stores from the early hours of the morning for the latest product drop, the campaign draws upon this culture to create a spoof clothing brand modelling the spicy chicken McNuggets.

The social campaign will run across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Further supported on Snapchat with a spicy chicken McNugget face lens that allows users to turn their face into a fire breathing spicy chicken McNugget and a Snapchat marker tech, which will allow users to bring the OOH posters to life through Snapchat

A series of GIFs and stickers have also been created that will live across digital channels allowing consumers to engage and interact with one another using the social currency.

Liz Whitbread, Brand Manager at McDonald’s, said: “The Spicy Chicken McNuggets campaign is a very exciting product launch for us. An existing innovation to one of our most loved products and with Schnuggs, we’ve got a campaign to match.”

Graham Lakeland, Creative Director at Leo Burnett London, said: “We drew inspiration from these cult-like brands that have this young audience going crazy for their latest product.  Therefore, creating a spoof ‘hype beast’ clothing brand to model our new Spicy McNuggets felt like a great fit. This, coupled with a mixture of food-focused posts helps us create a buzz to become one of the most talked about foods this year.”

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Dairylea has announced the launch of an exciting new brand campaign, which sees it renamed as “Dareylea”. The initiative was developed in partnership with creative agency ELVIS. The push is the first activity to launch since Dairylea’s appointment of ELVIS as lead strategic and creative agency last year.

The campaign shout of ‘We Dareylea You!’ encourages families all over Britain to get outside, get out of their comfort zone and get into some good old-fashioned wholesome fun, with cheesy dares printed in packs!

As part of the push, more than 8 million packs of Dairylea will be rebranded as “Dareylea”. The special packs will contain a series of cheesy dares.

The fully integrated campaign includes Out-Of-Home, online video, social, radio, and in-store activity, all set in a life-sized outdoorsy world made entirely out of paper.

The campaign aims to give greater purpose to the brand’s long-term positioning, ‘Feed the Fun’. It targets ‘balancer’ parents, who take an ‘everything in moderation’ approach and love to reconnect to their inner child by playing and engaging with their kids.

Media strategy and buying for the campaign is by Carat.

Patrick Bochet, Marketing Director at Mondelēz, said: “This bold campaign encourages people to reconnect to their inner child in a fun and original way which feels perfectly in keeping with the Dairylea brand. We can’t wait to see how people respond to our dares.”

Neale Horrigan, Creative Managing Partner at ELVIS, said: “We wanted to reignite Dairylea with a campaign that will stand out in the category while staying true to the heritage of the brand. We loved the thinking behind ‘Kids will do anything for Dairylea’ and wanted to take that one step further, modernising it by placing dares at the core of the idea and renaming Dairylea to “Dareylea”. ‘We Dareylea You’ is a big, bold, purposeful platform, that’s come to life thanks to our clients’ openness to embrace brave new creative thinking.”

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Direct Mail specialist, Hurdle, has announced its first secured client for its newly launched data-driven Programmatic Direct Mail service, HurdlGram. Leading online fresh grocery business Farmdrop bought into the service just days after its launch and will be using it as part of the customer on boarding process.

Farmdrop will be using the new service, which enables brand owners to efficiently and effectively deliver highly targeted, personalised experiences, to encourage repeat purchase. Once a customer has placed their first order, it will trigger a HurdlGram delivering a personal discount offer for their second purchase.

Bringing together the dynamic integration of customer data from CRM systems, demographics, web browsing data and behavioural algorithms, along with flexible and scalable digital print technology capable of producing variable message prints within the same project. HurdlGram presents a new medium that can meet today’s ‘always on’ marketing requirements at a fraction of the price.

Andrew Creed, Managing Partner of Hurdle and creator at HurdlGram, said: “HurdlGram can play an important role in the on boarding of customers, whether encouraging a first, or repeat purchase. The integration of HurdlGram offers Farmdrop a very real opportunity to deliver quick and personalised messages to their customers as part of a wider communication strategy. Its combination of speed, personalisation and relatively low cost helps brands create a physical customer experience that online simply cannot. HurdlGram will become a leading format for clients looking to drive activation, re-engagement and new customer acquisition.”

Jamie Jaggared, CMO of Farmdrop, said: “We’re very excited about the imminent release of HurdlGram. As a grocery brand we operate in one of the most competitive markets there is so the need to be able to communicate in the most timely and direct manner, offline & online, across all points of the user journey is mission-critical. We’ve had good results so far with our printed mail campaigns and have high hopes for this new programmatic channel in driving customer activation.”

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Continental Tyres, one of the leading tyre choices for car manufacturers, has released its latest campaign offering customers free family days out, spa & hotel breaks. TLC Marketing worked to administer this promotion.

From the 1^st September 2018, customers who purchase two or four Continental Tyres can claim a reward. The more tyres bought by customers, the more premium the reward will be.

Customers who’ve purchased two tyres from the promotional range will be eligible for one standard reward such as hotel stays and select days out (think Alton Towers and paintball). Customers who’ve purchased four tyres from the promotional range will be eligible for either two standard rewards or one premium reward such as premium hotel stays, spa breaks, and additional tickets for entry to days out venues.

John Pearson, Managing Director at TLC Marketing said “This promotion aims to show customers the durability of Continental Tyres by giving them a reward of their choice, and driving them towards a special experience.”

The promotion will run from the 1st September to 31^st October 2018. Qualifying customers must register their reward within 14 days of purchase and book within 60 days of receiving their voucher.

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The latest IPA Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising reveals a significant increase in the number of clients increasing their spend on ‘sales promotion’, with an index of +4.0 (calculated by comparing the number of marketers increasing budgets to those decreasing budgets, to create a plus or minus balance figure).

Overall, the average IPA Bellwether index stood at +6.5, lifted by a massive +22.7 result for internet advertising.

Paul Cope, Managing Director of the Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM), the UK trade body for the promotional marketing industry, says: “The latest IPA Bellwether figures are very welcome, but not really a surprise. Promotional marketing, where consumers are offered a reward or incentive to get them to do something, delivers real engagement for brands and is attracting increasing spend in a post-truth world, where what you do matters more than what you claim.”

Channels which saw an increase in budgets in the Q2 IPA Bellwether report include ‘main media’ advertising (+4.9) and events (+4.3).

Cope adds: “Promotional mechanics and techniques are now to be found across all media channels, and are incredibly strong in digital marketing and also events, which include experiential. Promotional marketing is, by its nature, about adding value to a brand and protecting brand equity and margins, which is very attractive for marketers, particularly at FMCG companies which are facing increasing pressure from retailers to cut prices.”

Channels which saw budgets falling included Direct Marketing (-3.2), PR (-6.5) and Market Research (-7.2).

UK marketers remain upbeat about their own company financial prospects, with a net balance of +13.3% of firms saying they were optimistic, fractionally higher than in the first quarter (+13.1%) and the greatest level of optimism since Q1 2017.

Following a slight upward revision to the official Q1 GDP quarterly growth figure, expectations are for a bounce back in Q2. As such, the Bellwether Report predicts a greater degree of optimism towards adspend growth for 2018 and 2019 than it previously forecast. Growth for the year as a whole is expected to come in at around 1.1% (revised from 0.8%), while 2019 growth was also upwardly revised to 0.7% (from 0.4%).

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Shoppers are highly likely to boycott brands which run “promotions that aren’t as good as they sound” according to new research into how much UK consumers trust retailers and brands.

Nearly six in 10 shoppers (59%) cited disappointing promotions as a key irritant in future purchasing decisions, putting it top of the factors which put shoppers off retailers and brands.

The latest industry report from Shoppercentric, a leading independent shopper research agency, “WindowON…Trust Issues”, reveals high levels of cynicism and falling levels of trust amongst the UK population.

This could have dire consequences for brands and retailers, because shoppers are increasingly voting with their wallets:

• 36% of UK shoppers have ‘stopped buying a brand or using a company’ because they were uncomfortable with something they did or stood for.
• Having taken a stand in relation to one brand or company, 58% of these ‘boycotters’ said they were more likely to do the same again in the future.
• 41% of boycotters were 55+ compared to 34% of non-boycotters.
• 55% of shoppers always or frequently look for products that are transparent about their contents e.g. see thru packs/clear labelling information.
• 32% always or frequently look for products that demonstrate their ethical policies.

Danielle Pinnington, Managing Director at Shoppercentric (pictured), says: “Over the last few years, with the rise of social media and 24/7 news, it has become clear that consumers are increasingly aware of shortfalls in the behaviour of the companies they buy from… If consumers are as cynical as our research indicates, it highlights the need for brands and retailers to be more aware of how trust issues can develop and what they need to do to avoid this. There’s the potential for serious impact on businesses when trust issues lead to a negative change in behaviour, something retailers can ill-afford to happen.”

Nearly half of all UK shoppers – 46% – now fall into the cynical bracket, failing to agree at all with the statement that they are ‘trustful of others’. These shoppers are also less likely to agree that ‘most people are trustful of others’, ‘most people are trustworthy’ and ‘most people are basically honest’.

Trust is a major issue, as nearly three quarters (74%) of UK shoppers agreed that they ‘want to feel good about the retailers they use’ while almost the same percentage (73%) ‘want the money they spend to go to companies they trust’.

Shoppers rate corporate retailers and brands poorly in relation to putting consumer interests first, in comparison to other institutions and businesses.

Shoppercentric also asked people what factors irritated them most, drawing up a list of key irritants (those that scored 8+ out of 10, where 10 is annoying enough to not buy that product or use that retailer).

As mentioned above, ‘Promotions that aren’t as good as they sound, was ranked number one irritant by the most respondents, followed by so-called ‘shrinkflation’, where reduce their size or quality but keep the same price with 58%. In third place are retailers and brands who make changes which negatively impact shoppers but lets them profit on 55%.

Pinnington concludes: “The individual irritations may seem relatively harmless in isolation, but these can create real frustration and annoyance among shoppers. To see a considerable proportion of shoppers giving such high annoyance points for so many factors should be a red flag to retailers and brands. When all else feels equal, such as price, range and accessibility, it can be the sense of connection, or not, that can lead a shopper to remain loyal to their usual brand/retailer, or choose to go elsewhere.

She adds: “Our research implies that 1 in 3 UK shoppers have taken action – to shop elsewhere or stop buying a particular product so this willingness to act is not limited to a small minority. This is the context in which trust issues need to be viewed and unless retailers and brands understand the potential impact that trust issues – big or small – can have on shoppers, they run the risk of falling foul of shoppers who are increasingly aware, thoughtful and willing to act.”

The Shoppercentric report can be found here.

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