SHORTLISTED – Magnetic Spotlight Awards 2018 for Best Use of Digital

“This partnership was well thought out, with our target audience, the Radio Times and selected digital channels being like peas in a pod.”

Pete Johnson, General Marketing Manager, Birds Eye

The Challenge

With a crowded market and constant pressure from cheaper products, Birds Eye’s KPI was to stamp their authority on Easter, persuade the audience that its quality was worth paying more for, and finally to make the nation fall in love with peas again. 

The Idea

Immediate’s publication, Radio Times, was ‘the place to be’ in regard to accessing the target audience of ABC1 women and empty nesters. In order to win the hearts and minds of the readers, Petits Pois (deriving from French, translating as small peas) was brought to life. A cute, lovable character that would work as a mascot and capture the audience’s attention through provoking their imagination.

The whole idea started with both audience and food insight. With more than 40m recipe searches a month, Immediate used their extensive search knowledge, combined with trend and seasonal analysis to develop their campaign content.

1. Six Easter pea recipes were shot at Immediate’s in-house studio. From canapés to tasteful sides, the versatility and loveliness of Birds Eye Petit Pois were portrayed. Both images and film were taken to be pushed on multiple platforms

2. Those platforms included print formats across Radio Times and BBC Good Food
3. Video content was also created and distributed at scale using highly targeted data segments across the multiple premium brands of Immediate and Birds Eye platforms
4. Social media also played an important role on the content’s visual distribution. When it comes to the videos, Immediate and Bird’s Eye focused on guaranteed completed views as they were confident of the quality of the content they produced
5. ​Finally, Peter, the mascot of Petit Pois was taken to the Radio Times editorial team and integrated throughout the Easter issue of Radio Times. Woven within the editorial, Peter was hidden 27 times throughout the magazine, leading the readers to a competition to spot him and getting the chance to win a weekend getaway

The Results

The partnership was a huge success, in reach and engagement KPIs, and also played a key part in some notable uplifts in sales of Petits Pois:

• 1.1m+ organic video views across Immediate’s brands in just two weeks
   
• Average video completion rate of 22%
   
• 1.36m dwell time on native recipes
   
• 1.66% CTR on recipe pages
   
• The videos saw great engagement for Birds Eye across their own platform, including the most-watched video ever for them on Facebook with more than 4.4m views.
   
• Birds Eye saw huge uplifts in sales including Birds Eye Petits Pois growth (Nielsen Value Sales, 8 w/e 20/05/17) +48.6%
   
• The success of Easter led to a repeated, extended Petits Pois partnership between Immediate and Birds Eye at Christmas 2017, which also saw strong results, producing some significant annual uplifts for Birds Eye