Reaching Beyond Product To Attract New Consumers

Case Study: Dave’s Killer Bread — Activate Your Awesome

Dave’s Killer Bread was looking to make some noise during a key selling season, spring. Not only does the change of seasons bring an air of newness and freshness, it’s when grocery stores reset their bread aisles. Seeking support to help grow the brand at a critical time, DKB wanted a new approach to build awareness, deepen loyalty and attract new fans.

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The Campaign

We seized the opportunity to reach shoppers unfamiliar with Dave’s Killer Bread, developing an integrated campaign that reinforced the benefits of whole grains and the energetic “can do” feeling people gain from healthier eating. Affirming consumer aspirations to be creative, healthy and strong, the integrated promotion elevated DKB beyond a nutritious bread maker to claim lifestyle brand positioning. We unleashed DKB to help consumers “activate their awesome,” embodying the values, aspirations, interest and attitudes of potential customers.

Insight

Our creative approach tapped into research that told us our target consumer views a healthy lifestyle as going far beyond nutrition and fitness to include increased satisfaction and fulfillment in all aspects of life: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions.

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Strategy

Much of DKB’s marketing to date had been rooted in strong and declarative statements about its product benefits, e.g., “bread with boom” and “baked boldly.” This campaign was designed to make the brand more synonymous with a feeling of accomplishment, power and strength to interest people unfamiliar with DKB. We shifted the narrative from straight talk about products and nutrition with an approach expressing an attitude of empowerment and vigor.

This is how we did it:
• Custom campaign GIFs generated views and brand awareness
• DKB breads and bagels were highlighted as easy ways to incorporate whole grains into your life so you can be the best “you” you can be
• Prize packages that mapped to consumers’ aspirations to be creative, healthy and strong incentivized participation
• Lifestyle influencer partners reached target audiences in key markets where traditional bread brands are top  sellers: New York City, Dallas, Boston, Philadelphia and Miami
• Native partner e-news sustained giveaway interest and entries mid-campaign

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Results

Activate Your Awesome produced record-breaking results:
– 20M impressions at a cost of less than $.01 per impression
– Introduced DKB to 33K new consumers who visited the website for the first time
– Nearly one-third were from the New York City and Dallas target markets
– 89K page views
– 28K contest entries
– 19K email opt-ins
– 9K coupon downloads with a high 17% retail redemption rate
– 3K new Instagram followers

Fist Bumps

“This campaign was new territory for us! We have a strong brand identity and have leaned on a certain graphic treatment, visuals and words. However, we wanted something fresh that brought some action and feeling into the campaign beyond what we had done in the past. We wanted people to feel that DKB is a part of helping them activate the best parts of themselves… to activate their awesomeness. The results we saw were outstanding. By far the most successful campaign of this type we’ve ever run. We crushed all our KPIs and reached new fans and new audiences in ways we hadn’t before. Hate to sound cheesy… but the campaign really was awesome.”

Cristina Watson, Brand Manager
Dave’s Killer Bread