“Following the success of our previous collaboration with Immediate Media, we’re excited to reach new audiences and share our delicious recipes with even more people.

“We chose Immediate as the home of some of the UK’s most trusted, widely reached and most credible brands. Together, we aim to create memorable moments and bring a little piece of warmth to people’s lives”.

Rebecca Robert, Marketing Director, Storck UK

The challenge

Kantar research conducted by Werther’s had identified an area of growth around the ‘craving buster’ consumption opportunity – specifically around later afternoon and weekend snacking, and eating outside and on the move, largely amongst young families. To tap into these moments, OMD needed a partner that could not only bring this to life in a unique way but also had mass reach. Werther’s started its partnership with Immediate in early 2022, in a bid to broaden its appeal amongst this younger demographic, reflecting their differing needs and usage occasions.
After a successful first year, and going into 2023, the objectives for the partnership remained the same, namely:

Showcase the range of the Werther’s Original portfolio through unique and inspiring recipes.

• Continue spreading the ‘Little Piece of Warmth’ messaging
• Showcase Werther’s different usage occasions and position it as the perfect on-the-go snack to our audience

The big idea

Immediate wanted to bring Werther’s ‘Little Piece of Warmth’ messaging to life in a way that was relevant to its special interest brands, and lean into the things that made those audiences feel good, through positive, uplifting, practical, and contextually relevant content.

At the heart of this partnership is a bespoke ‘Unwind with Werther’s’ hub, containing recipe content that shows how Werther’s confectionery can be used as a cooking ingredient, from On-The-Go Summer Oat Bars (made with Werther’s Original Sugar Free Creamy Toffees), to Christmas Caramel Pavlova Wreath (using Werther’s Original Butter Candies).

The hub, created by Immediate’s Imagine studio, also contains inspirational ways in which visitors can add ‘A Little Piece Of Warmth’ to their day with Werther’s Original. Articles and accompanying advertorials, traffic drivers and social posts, are aligned to the passion points of Immediate brands’ audiences’, e.g., cooking (BBC Good Food, olive and delicious.), gardening (BBC Gardeners’ World), or entertainment (Radio Times).

Making it happen

Results from 2022’s campaign (see below) provided the insight and confidence to continue and expand upon the partnership with Immediate’s editorial brands, adding more content and functionality to the ‘Unwind with Werther’s’ hub. Immediate created six new recipes, including Toffee and Pretzel Rocky Road and Caramelised Korean Beef. All were designed to inspire and educate home cooks through the range of Werther’s Original products available. These recipes boost talkability and added a surprising, disruptive element to the campaign, especially in print food titles.
The hub continues to encourage Immediate’s audiences to find ‘A Little Piece of Warmth’ in their daily lives, leaning on different passion points such as gardening and entertainment. However, the big development for 2023 is that we have encouraged visitors to the hub to share their own ‘Little Piece of Warmth’, telling us what makes them happy for the chance to win a Werther’s-curated hamper. Entries are posted onto a Wall of Warmth on the hub – a feed of user-generated positivity.
Further updates for 2023 have seen OMD lean further into the power of Immediate’s brands, with deeper editorial integration across more touchpoints:

• Seasonal updates to the skin of the ‘Unwind with Werther’s hub and digital display/social assets.
• A beautiful bellyband wrapped around subscriber copies of olive magazine, giving Werther’s incredible standout.
• olive cover sponsorship, including a Werther’s Original logo on the front cover.
• Five new print advertorials, bringing recipe content to life in the BBC Good Food, Olive and delicious. Christmas issues.
• Sponsorship of the BBC Good Food’s podcast, BBC Countryfile’s outdoor ‘Plodcast’, plus bespoke themed episodes on the Olive podcast. On the BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Podcast, we encouraged people to enjoy Werther’s while indulging their passion of gardening.
• Trial of Werther’s was encouraged at Immediate events attended by 130k people via sampling and goodybags.
  

Results

• Immediate’s brand uplift study showed that 96% of respondents had brand awareness of Werther’s Original and 53% of those who recalled the campaign took action, including buying the product or cooking one of the recipes. OMD expect to see similar results at the end of the partnership in 2023
• Expected to surpass numbers from 2022, with reach predicted to increase from 8.9m in 2022 to 10.6m in 2023. At time of writing, the partnership was tracking at 82% against the KPI for content views on the hub, and this is only half-way through the six-month campaign
• 35k engagements received on social posts on BBC Good Food to date (likes, shares, comments). People are loving the recipes, leaving comments like “looks delicious!”.
• Fantastic CTRs on social YOY: BBC GF 1.72% in 2022 vs 2.85% in 2023
• 7k entries for the Wall of Warmth so far, exceeding expectations
• OMD achieved fantastic PR coverage, including 10 pieces of additional content reaching approx. 378k additional people