X M&M's Mobile Version

"We had to change our mind-set for this campaign because we had always delivered our messaging through the personalities of our M&M’s characters."

Source: Nielsen

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Among the ideas to come out of the partnership was to have multiple creatives during the four-week campaign, which ran from 7 February to 7 March, to support in-store marketing activity. “When researching the use of the Facebook feed we learned a lot about being mobile-ready and that using a pack shot does not have to mean the death of creativity. In fact, we could use the pack to capture the magic of our distinctive M&M’s characters,” says Saller. For example, the characters were seen on-pack juggling M&M’s during a five-second ad with the top-line message ‘Chocolate, Peanut, Crispy… Have them all with M&M’s Mix!’ with an option to ‘like’ the post. The campaign drove a significant sales uplift of 36% for M&M’s Mix and also for the wider M&M’s brand (+11%), resulting in a return on investment of £3.27 per £1 spent. Facebook’s client partner for FMCG, Lucy Knowles, says the campaign demonstrated what can happen when the creative and the media buying process follow best practice for the platform. “The campaign was aimed at 18- to 50-year-old males and females and the Facebook and Instagram news feeds were an efficient way to deliver a high reach,” she says. “In fact, the strength of the creative meant it reached around 17 million people and helped to lift sales – an example of where great creative and media can deliver results.”

Last November, Facebook’s advertising experts spent a day at Mars explaining to the brand owner’s marketers what great creative looks like on its news feed pages and how to follow best practice when running a campaign. Mars’ media director Christoph Weber launched the workshop by explaining how the company’s marketers must always think digitally nowadays to meet the shifts in consumer behaviour and find new and innovative ways to use mobile more effectively to boost reach. “The Facebook workshop demonstrated to us that when using the news feed our branding and logo must be up front and we must convey our message in the first three seconds,” says Saller. “In many ways we had to change our mind-set for this campaign because we had always delivered our messaging through the personalities of our M&M’s characters and funny ads.” She admits that the process was tough. “We had to keep reminding ourselves of the brand stories we had been told by Facebook and the knowledge we’d gained.” The Mars team created some initial ideas before holding another collaborative workshop with Facebook where the content was refined. “Perhaps we had tried to be too clever. We needed to be pulled back to ensure the content had initial impact and was a great example of being ‘made for mobile’.”

That’s why Mars Wrigley Confectionery partnered with Facebook to boost sales of its M&M’s Mix packs, which contain a selection of chocolate, crispy and peanut M&M’s. The brand equity of M&M’s is strong but brand manager Alexa Saller was concerned that many consumers were unaware of the different eating experiences offered by the M&M’s Mix pack. The brand’s research showed that a mobile-driven campaign on Facebook would be an effective way to raise awareness of this offering and subsequently boost sales. “We had to communicate how M&M’s Mix was new and provided different textures in one bag,” she says. “Our insight revealed that the preferences we have in our lives for companies to decide for us – and to have a choice of things easily available – extended to confectionery. The challenge was how to communicate that M&M’s Mix offered this.”

onsumers are now demanding different flavours and textures of sweets and want

Andrea Ursini, Simba

You can’t just take a TV ad and put it on Stories. The content has to be short [15 seconds or less] and you have to keep in mind that people are in a different mindset

to buy packs they can share. Confectionery manufacturers are therefore changing eating and purchasing habits.

M&M's saw the benefits of taking an unfamiliar approach to mobile advertising, in a Facebook campaign that boosted sales by more than a third.

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