Ferrero Foodservice Australia found itself operating in a highly competitive environment – where more brands were trying to reach the same audience at the same time for ongoing promotion.
Traditional foodservice industry media is still an important information source, however these media outlets are becoming smaller, and merging or shutting down completely as the local media market suffers from a downturn in advertising.
Mulberry was brought on board to develop a communication campaign that would reach a business-to-business audience without relying heavily on trade advertising.
Mulberry pointed out the importance for Nutella and Ferrero Foodservice of engaging with foodservice professionals through touch points that actually reach their intended audience.
At the start of 2017, Mulberry Marketing Melbourne worked with Ferrero Foodservice to launch a global first “Nutella Foodservice” Facebook Page. This page acts not only as a promotional platform for Ferrero’s products but also generates sales leads, wholesaler inquiries, and database contacts through a combination of paid targeted ads and engagement strategies.
The page has successfully built a community of foodservice professionals including bakers, chefs, pâtissiers, distributors, café owners and restaurant workers.
The Nutella Foodservice Facebook page gained over 25,000 likes in its first six months and has now grown past 40,000. The page is used for a wide range of integrated marketing strategies including sampling and lead generation.
The page is used as the primary platform for World Nutella Day (the company’s biggest event of the year) and Mulberry has coordinated several World Nutella Day promotions and giveaways through Facebook that allow the company to reach wider audiences and engage with independent cafes that are more difficult to reach at scale.
The Nutella Foodservice Facebook page is now used as global best practise for similar pages by Ferrero around the world.