#MarketingExcellenceAwards SG 2021 highlight: FairPrice scores points with social media humour

When the pandemic hit, most of FairPrice’s social media content had been geared towards the dissemination of service updates, new initiatives, service assurances and advisories on false information or scams. Although the consistent updates regarding store operations and products have kept widespread panic at bay and managed customers’ expectations, the atmosphere on FairPrice’s social channels had become less engaging. 

To connect with younger stakeholders and grow brand love, FairPrice worked with Socialyse to launch a viral marketing campaign to create a social media atmosphere that was more fun and relatable. The campaign allowed FairPrice to connect with audiences in a positive and light-hearted manner and impressed the judges, winning the gold award for Excellence in Social Media Marketing at MARKETING INTERACTIVE’s Marketing Excellence Awards Singapore 2021.

Challenge

With the pandemic slowly becoming the new normal, FairPrice realised that its social media content had become uninteresting and unrelatable to its stakeholders. Previously, the content had been geared towards pandemic-related announcements and customer reassurances, product and store promotions and highlights of CSR activities. While such content was useful in managing Singaporean’s expectations, FairPrice’s social media content was not engaging. FairPrice needed a campaign that would inject fun into its channels and connect with its audiences on a personal level.

Strategy

FairPrice understood that its target audience -- tech-savvy Millennials who were heavy users of Instagram and Facebook -- were often aware of trending topics and quick to jump into online conversations. 

To connect with them on a personal level, FairPrice worked towards achieving three key objectives:

1. Ride the wave on trending topics online to connect with its audience
2. Drive engagement of audience on social media
3. Create a more positive and fun atmosphere on their channels

FairPrice hoped to use trend-jacking efforts to connect with its audience in a more positive and light-hearted way as an extension of the following baseline strategy:  

• From functional to personable 

Moving away from publishing tactical, promotions-driven content to adopting a tone that focused on relationship building. The aim was to further foster the connection that FairPrice had with its customers and create personable content one would expect to be shared by a friend rather than a business.

• From brand-first to audience-first

Shifting its message focus from the usual brand and product-driven messaging to topics that the audience knows first-hand and would better relate to. 

• From vanity metrics to meaningful metrics

Deprioritising hard measures of success such as follower growth or sales conversion in favour of engagement and sentiments.

The team conducted daily social listening to pick up on trending topics and conversations online, looking out for topics that may be relevant to FairPrice. The team also monitored social channels, content platforms and even forums to understand overall conversation volumes and sentiments among its target audience groups. Using Socialyse’s media monitoring tools, which track and predict the impact of stories online, the team would evaluate if it would be worthwhile to jump on the bandwagon of a chosen topic, based on the expected traction and engagement it is expected to obtain. Lastly, the team leveraged the insights to create a content piece in response to the chosen topic.

Execution

FairPrice’s trend-jacking efforts on social were anchored on three message types: Pop culture and news, influencer drops and, and seasonal events. To ensure that the content created would not only be trending but would add value to the brand and audience, the team made sure that the content pushed out was ethical, safe and quick enough to be part of the online conversation. 

Influencer drops: Mr Brown and The Muttons on Class 95

Through regular media monitoring, the brand noticed Mr Brown had embarked on an experiment to create the perfect coffee at home and this was gaining quite the traction among his followers. He had already tested between different coffee grounds and was now onto the next step to find the perfect milk to compliment his coffee. FairPrice sent the influencer a variety of milk brands to try out and this promptly ended up on a post. Mr Brown’s posts garnered high engagement with over 300 people commenting on Facebook to share their own input and recommendations for milk to make the best coffee. FairPrice kept the engagement going and worked with Mr Brown to respond to any queries his followers may have regarding the availability of products in-store.

When Muttons in the Morning radio show host Justin Ang encountered a chilli shortage with his food deliveries, FairPrice hijacked the opportunity to send him all the chilli he would ever need and showcase the range of sauces it has in stores. Justin responded on the brand's Facebook page, and the Muttons’ fans were quick to jump in with their own two cents on their own suggestions of the best chilli sauces to try. The post garnered over 1,000 organic engagements. 

Pop culture and news: Banana Bouquet and Apple iPhone 12 release

The team was alerted to a piece of news about a man declaring his love on Valentine’s Day with a banana bouquet. To expedite the visual creation, the team headed down to the store to create FairPrice’s own version of a banana bouquet, and within a day, published an idea for people to try out. The post was met with positive reactions and garnered over 50k organic impressions and a healthy organic engagement rate of 3.62%.

FairPrice also created a parody of Apple’s announcement on its website of its new iPhone 12 series, which turned out to be one of the best performing posts on the FairPrice Facebook Page in 2020. It obtained over 36k organic impressions and 27k engagement, including 19,926 clicks and 1,871 shares. The post did well due to the pertinence of the news, especially among the local audience. The new iPhone 12 was all that everyone was talking about since it was announced and FairPrice shared its spinoff post within the day to ensure it gained traction.

Seasonal events: A quiet Chinese New Year 2021

In light of the restrictions on Yusheng tossing at Chinese New Year, the team created an ASMR video that gave a sneak peek into the quieter Lo Hei gatherings experienced this year.  The video rode on the news around there being no shouting during Lo Hei while spinning off on the enduring social media trend that is ASMR content. The post received over 25k video views, 811 engagements and an engagement rate of 3%.

Results

The campaign was a success, garnering a total campaign reach of 923.4k and an uptick in follower acquisition from the trendjacking posts. The campaign also achieved a total campaign engagement of 70.6k and earned an estimated PR value of SG$156.9k.