Objectives:

• Cobra was the title sponsor of National Curry Week (NCW). From a digital point of view, we wanted to use this opportunity to:
  • Create compelling content which demonstrated Cobra’s association with National Curry Week
  • Make that content famous through a Cobra driven ‘We Love Curry’ Facebook Group
• Facebook Fan target: 30k – by 31/12/09

Strategy:

We used a three-tiered approach to the campaign, creating channels on Facebook and YouTube and an app, called Twindaloo, for Twitter.

• Facebook
  • We created a community where Cobra can engage with curry lovers on an ongoing basis. Using ‘We Love Curry’ as the group name allowed us to extend activity beyond National Curry Week and develop a range of rich content.
  • The content created for the website and PR campaign helped fuel the Facebook page and we also originated other content to keep an active debate e.g. commenting on stories about curry in the mainstream news or referencing an episode of Gavin and Stacey where characters discussed whether or not to share their curry takeaways.
  • It was very important that we took a responsible approach to the Facebook page. Access was limited to those over legal drinking age.
  • The site was subject to ongoing moderation and any inappropriate comments which appeared or which broke the Portman Group guidelines, were removed.
  • We sought to amplify the campaign through Facebok advertising and an incentive that offered users the chance to win a Curry Chef for the night to cook you and your friends and family a tremendous curry, and a crate of Cobra to go with it.
• YouTube
  • In order to create an online hub to host the video content created for the campaign (for both the website and media/blogger outreach) we created a Cobra/We Love Curry branded YouTube channel. Taking this approach had several benefits:
    • Made the videos easy to share and seed online
    • Assisted with organic search
    • Increased Cobra and We Love Curry’s footprint across social media
    • Created a lasting hub for long-tail content
  • We sought to amplify the campaign by carrying out online seeding of the videos, focusing on the featured Anjum Anand video. Bloggers and other media targets were approached with a link to the content and encouraged to embed it or add a link to drive views and create awareness of the content.
  • We also ensured that video content from the YouTube channel was embedded into the Cobra website and the Dr Spice blog posts.

• Twindaloo
  • As Molson Coors is an alcohol brand, there were several limitations with using Twitter to directly target consumers as we could only target those over 18 and could only engage with the audience in a controlled way that supports responsible drinking.
  • Along with these considerations, we also had to ensure that we fostered and encouraged Cobra’s strong association with curry.
  • In order to address these issues ‘Twindaloo’ was created, an application which analyses a user’s tweets and creates a curry ‘match’ for them based on a series of key word algorithms. Each user entered their user name and the application then generated the ‘type’ of curry they were. For instance someone using bland language or who rarely tweets would be categorised as boiled rice, whereas someone using animated or even aggressive language would be classed as a vindaloo!
  • The Twindaloo application was amplified organically across Twitter. Once the app had analysed the tweet the user was then able to then tweet a pre-written response which linked back to the app. The app was purposely built to encourage pass- on through Twitter. We also purposely tweeted the app in the direction of several top bloggers to try for themselves and used it to analyse the Twitter profile of topical celebrities (eg X-Factor contestants) on the We Love Curry Facebook page. We also outreached to relevant industry media to increase industry knowledge and drive further buzz.

  Results:

  • Facebook
    • 57024 fans joined in the first week
    • 62,583 Facebook fans joined – by 31/12/09 (6 weeks after launch) – 208.61% percentage increase against target
    • 6912 user interactions by 31/12/09
    • 2777 video plays by 31/12/09
  • YouTube
    • 8273 YouTube video views.
  • Twindaloo (Twitter)
    • 1062 users during NCW
    • 152 tweets mentioned Twindaloo in NCW