The Conversation Manager

The American snack Wheat Thins wanted to surprise its fans. When a fan tweeted something like: "O no, I’m out of wheat thins", the machine started to work. The brand surprised these fans with a real-time treatment, by taking out their ‘Crunch is calling’-Van and driving towards the fan to deliver a new load of snacks.

After a while fans started to understand the idea behind it and spread fake ‘Cries for help’ on Twitter. So, at that point the brand could not handle it anymore. However, they made a video of their first few actions which was watched by quite a lot of people. Next to that they made it into the offline press to boost conversations about the brand.

Marmite, one of Unilever UK brands, is a brand that people either hate or love. It appears that there is no in-between.

A while ago, Marmite wanted to launch a new, stronger taste. To support this launch, they decided to look for brand lovers. They searched on social media and identified a group of real, die-hard Marmite fans. They invited these fans to come to a beautiful castle. The event was positioned as the launch of a secrete Marmite lover community: the Marmarati. The castle was an old Victorian style castle and the entire brand team of Marmite was dressed up like people living in those Victorian times. During the event, the brand team asked the Mararati to have a blind taste test. This to find out which of the new concepts scored best among the heaviest Marmite lovers.

One of the concepts was chosen and launched in the market. The communication of the launch was entirely done by the Marmarati. By sending pictures and stories to their friends, Marmite fans were informed that this new taste was really great, really something for the lovers of the brand.

Eventually, the launch was a bi.g success and Marmite still communicates through social media with these Marmarati. A brand relationship has started. A beautiful tale about brand lovers that leverage their favorite brand.

Last Friday I was home late, did not have dinner yet. So, I decided to stop at my favorite fries place in Knesselare (BE). I had to wait in line a few minutes and had the chance to talk to the guy that owns this place. I was amazed by his passion for his job. He was doing research for the ideal size of his fries, doing experiments making them 1mm less thick. He was wondering what this would do to the taste, his energy bill and the level of fat. Next to that, he told me he screened all of the possible suppliers and checked them on their passion. He only wants to work with suppliers who are passionate about snacks & fries. If he feels they are ‘just doing their job’, he feels they’re worthless because they don’t help him in improving his quality and his offering.

To be honest, I was so impressed by his passion towards fries that I became a huge fan. Maybe it’s no coincidence that there are only 2 fries places left in my town. A few went out of business since he started and the other remaining one…well, I don’t see that many people there as well.

I’m convinced that his clients feel (maybe implicit) his passion and are charmed by it. Passion sells, passion creates stories and passion makes a business successful.