'Tweet to Eat' turned 3 bus shelters into crisp vending machines to excite 16-34s about return of 'Do Us A Flavour' promotion
Over the last five years Walkers has been perceived as having lost some of its 'magic'; we needed to bring that magic back. 'Do Us A Flavour' (DUAF) is Walkers' nationwide, crowd-sourced hunt for a brand new flavour of crisps. The first of its kind, this competition has run once before and got the nation talking about and eating unusual flavoured crisps. Since then the format has spurned lots of imitators across numerous categories. When planning its return in 2014 Walkers wanted to devise a modern approach, communicating with consumers across all channels.
Our brief from OMD was clear: we had to deliver a campaign that drove trial, created an unmissable launch for the new flavours, delivered a PR'able experience that was wrapped up in the brand while understanding the key insight that technology now facilitates greater engagement for consumers. The campaign needed to excite people by announcing that the original and best crisp flavour promotion was back, better than before and easier than ever to get involved. We had to get DUAF into popular culture, drive participation, get people voting and talking about the flavours.
The primary audience for Walkers is ABC1C2 Mums, already targeted with a comprehensive TV plan. We wanted to create an engaging OOH campaign that would capture the attention of the secondary audience of hard to reach 16-34 light TV viewers, who are heavy users of social media. We created "Tweet to Eat", a world-first integration of Twitter, digital screens, purpose built software and traditional vending hardware shrunk to fit into poster units turning three London bus shelter panels into digital, tweet-activated vending machines.
We gave away a lot of crisps and people loved it! As well as loving it, people definitely talked about it. Public reaction to the campaign was phenomenal, with many engaging @walkers_busstop to thank Walkers and convey their excitement not only for their free crisps but also for the experience.
The campaign execution supercharged some brand magic for Walkers Crisps using proprietary IP, the brand's iconic celebrity face, some bespoke and contextually relevant digital creative and the social rocket-fuel of Twitter to create a world-first experience never seen before in a poster site.