Nutella Lover's Come Out of the Closet...It's a Big Closet
Friday, July 24, 2009 at 1:55AM (Traduire en français) (Traduci in italiano)
An interesting pattern caught my eye this week. Some friends Steve Woodruff, Sonny Gill, Kris Colvin, Kirsten Wright, Oliver Blanchard and others exposed their personal opinions about Nutella.
Online a secret society of Nutella lovers emerged to the fore front of online chatter. There are some of us that hide in the shadows with a favorite jar of the chocolate hazelnut delight and a large spoon waiting for the sweet escape. Other novices display there new obsession in the public eye. :)
Why is this an interesting topic?
Branding and History:
The Nutella brand is an old brand. If fact it is older than I am. My grandmother use to reward us as kids with a spoonful when we were behaving well. With that in mind the brand has done nothing to perpetuate it's larger following online. Facebook boasts six group pages all about Nutella all generated by self proclaimed addicts. They range from three million to two hundred thousand and all pages are very active.
What do they have?
They have a decent landing site that interacts well from a broadcasting stand point. It educates and kept my attention really only because of the build your own breakfast page. It was interesting because being a big of a health nut I can't see myself reaching for the Nutella as a substitute for a quality meal. For me, Nutella is more of a comfort food. There is plenty of history and other goodies on their site to.
They do have a sweepstakes on nutellausa.com I have concluded it probably to gather information about their consumer. It is composed of five basic questions and your entered to win a case of Nutella. Yes, I said a case. The survey has been running for two years. Ironically, if Nutella was to just paying a little attention to their own online buzz and with the right buzz they could obtain far more data on their user much quicker than just using one a simple survey.
Why are they missing the boat on this one?
Here is a prime example of a brand ignoring their community and the online consumers. They probably attribute a growth in sales to the wind blowing the right direction that day. In general just hoping for the best. Most large brands will just hope for the best and ignore the influx for several years. Reason is they just don't get how the world have evolved and will continue to post static news releases on their site.
To the Nutella virgins and the Nutella Diehards:
Have you tried it yet? If you haven't and like chocolate is to die for. I explain my technique in my video. You can also find out all the ways people customize their Nutella experience at Ms. Adventures in Italy. She does a deep dive into a variety of Nutella eating techniques. I got half way down the list before I had to click off. It was just too yummy!
Questions:
So what happens if there is a major PR disaster or something similar?
What can Nutella do to accept their new online surroundings?
Whats your favorite way to enjoy Nutella? Are you a "spoon" or "spreader" or other?
What? You don't like Nutella? Hard to believe. Leave your comment below .
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Reader Comments (1)
Nice job on the Vlog and the Blog. Nutella is one of my personal faves so it struck a chord with me when i saw it was the topic. It can definitely be a comfort food. :)
I'm trusting that Nutella's parent company is web savy enough to be watching for any mention of them so that they can be monitored as well as tracked. As you know this will setup a historical set of statistics over time and they'll know if there are negative things mentioned that are related to the company or brand. If they have this in place and utilize social media properly they'll be all set. If not it'll be like any other company that ignores their customer if something goes wrong.
Nutella can embrace it and hire at least one Social Media Strategist to assist them in setting things up or even running their campaign. If they requested to be active on the FB community or increase their involvement if they are already then it'll build goodwill and add to the buzz if done right.
"Favorite way to enjoy Nutella?" It depends on my mood, what's handy, and what I'd like to have it with. Sometimes a big spoonful of it can be just enough so that I don't overdue it. Sometimes I'm a spooner and yet there are times to flip the spoon over and spread it, just before eating the extra excess off of the spoon, and other times dipping is definitely in order. :)) Though this might sound a bit Freudian I can assure you that wasn't the intent, though as I read it I wonder. :)
There's no one that doesn't like nutella unless they have a food allergy or like most of us, just LOVE it!