E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

E-marketing is defined as the relational exchanges in digital, networked, interactive

environments (Kalyanam and McIntyre, 2002), while Smith and Chaffey (2005) defines it as

‘achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies’.

Overview: Hovis

Hovis is a Premium Food brand which offers premium bread and rolls range, including wholemeal, soft white, best of both, hearty oats, seed sensations, granary, and original wheatgerm. Hovis also offers toasting products such as crumpets, pancakes, English muffins and teacakes. The brand revolves around heritage, quality and its health benefits (Mintel, 2011a). Hovis positions itself as a high quality and healthy brand in the breakfast goods and premium bread sector (Mintel, 2011a).

Hovis has an integrated marketing communication (IMC) of traditional marketing communications and e-marketing communication. The scope of this report is the e-marketing aspect of its promotional activities. However it is important to recognise the complementing role of its e-marketing activities, and that Hovis does not engage solely in e-marketing activities.

CELEBRATING 125 YEARS OF HOVIS

Hovis dedicated a webpage in its website to mark its 125 years of baking called “125 Years

of Goodness” (Hovis, 2011a).

HOVIS’S WEBPAGE

A webpage is a specific page on a website (Kalyanam and McIntyre, 2002). The webpage

contains the story of Hovis bakery, heritage, its acts of charity, the development of its bread

range into a healthier option throughout the years, and its associations with British farmers in

baking a 100% British wheat for the entire Hovis product range. The e-marketing

communication for this event focuses on brand equity.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

The webpage also features an interlinking e-marketing communication tools called the social

plug-ins.

SOCIAL PLUG-INS

The “125 Years of Goodness” webpage allows its audience to show their affinity of its

content, by Like1, Tweet2 and Google+13. These social plug-ins or small widgets allow

visitors to easily share the website or webpage with their friends and followers on their

respective social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and also enable customers or visitors

to communicate their preferences to other customers; hence they are community building

functions (Kalyanam and McIntyre, 2002). The webpage also gives an option for the

audience to print4 the content of the webpage.

Figure 1 Social plug-ins

Source: Hovis (2011a)

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Social Plug-ins

Facebook Like, Twitter tweet and Google +1 sharing from a website or webpage

Advantages

Viral syndication of contentWhen a user Likes or Tweets a webpage, the link to the webpage automatically appears on the visitor’s Facebook profile (Figure 1.1) and newsfeed or Twitter timeline, exposing it to the visitor’s friends and followers to access the content.

Figure 1.1 Example the link to Hovis’s “125 Years of Goodness” webpage on a visitor’s Facebook profile after clicking the Like button, visible to the user’s friends.

Source: Facebook (2011)

Increases traffic to websiteEach time visitors click the like, tweet or share button, information about the website is shared with their friends via the newsfeed, which can result in increased traffic (Chaney, 2011).

Measure of EffectivenessIt can be used to measure effectiveness, for example 6 people like1 the webpage or content (Figure 1).

Disadvantages

Potential user interface (UI) impactPerhaps some readers or visitors may not like the extra clutter on their Facebook profile page and remove it (Lee, 2010) hence, dismissing the potential exposure to others, and the advantages discussed above.

Measure of ExposureIt cannot be a reliable measure of exposure, because not all visitors who have read or viewed the content of the webpage will like or share the content.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

THE ROLE OF E-MARKETING

Hovis’s e-marketing communications for the event utilises technology to communicate

Hovis’s brand image, tradition and commitments over 125 years of baking with and among

independent or groups (in the form of online communities) of individuals through the

webpage. Hovis did not aim to use e-marketing to generate sales from the event. Hovis’s

main aim is to build brand equity through interactive communication, within the networked

internet environment, with the internet community. Since Hovis’s e-marketing aim for the

event is simply communication, its e-marketing role is promotion (Kalyanam and McIntyre,

2002).

Digital offerings, such as information and digital printing facility, and social plug-ins,

according to Kalyanam and McIntyre (2002) contribute to a communication-oriented design

of a webpage, which defines the role of the webpage as a promotional function. The e-

marketing communication for this event does not indicate any specific target segment. Thus,

it is assumed to be targeted to the general UK online and interested community.

Hovis does not engage in any other e-marketing activity specifically for the event. However,

with the incorporation of social plug-ins, Hovis’s “125 Years of Goodness” webpage

ultimately gives visitors access to the entire website and webpages, which are further

interlinked with other e-marketing promotional tools such as, Facebook, Twitter, and

YouTube. These online media will be described in the later section of the report.

SITUATION ANALYSIS

The following analysis will allow the formulation of effective IMC strategies, tactics and

recommendations for Hovis’s “125 Years of Goodness” event. The analysis will be based on

Smith and Chaffey (2001) e-marketing planning framework.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

CUSTOMER CONTEXT

Online bread consumers are associated with online grocery shoppers. Online consumers for

Hovis are associated with ABC1 women of 25-44 years, and families with children, reflecting

their busy lifestyles. This is consistent with the above-average broadband penetration

amongst the under-45s and the ABC1 socio-economic groups (Mintel, 2009; 2011d).

Customers also include those subscribed to Hovis’s updates on its Facebook page, Twitter

account and YouTube channel.

BUSINESS CONTEXT

Hovis competes within the premium bread market, with brands such as Warburton and

Kingsmill. Premium bread is a mature market (Mintel, 2011a), consisting of premium bread

highly differentiated by branding. Within the bread market Hovis owns the second largest

share of 19%, with its closest competitor, Warburtons leading the market with 25% share in

2010 (Mintel, 2011a).

E-Marketing Activities

Hovis’s current e-marketing activity includes provision of information and social web

marketing such as online video advertising and public relations, through online media:

Hovis Website

Hovis YouTube channel

Twitter

Facebook page

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Hovis’s overall e-marketing communications objective is a long-term strategy evolving

relationship. Online media is primarily used to build brand equity through customer

relationship management (CRM) and community building. Hovis aims to position itself as a

‘healthier breakfast option’ and to promote its ‘100% British’ image to the market.

In 2009, Hovis advertised through online newspapers to increase sales, penetration and

emotional engagement of its target audience, ABC1 women 25-64 years with children (NMA,

2009). In 2010, Hovis launched an online ‘Stop me Snacking’ campaign using Hovis’s brand

ambassador, Olympic cyclist, Victoria Pendleton, which utilises the power of social media,

particularly Facebook, to help drive more women to eat Hovis Wholemeal for breakfast and

spark conversation around the ‘bread debate’ (FDIN, 2011a).

Hovis’s current e-marketing communication focuses on 100% British Wheat and is currently

live; hence, it has not yet been reflected in the latest statistical data (FDIN, 2011b).

Hovis’s Online Media

Hovis: Hovis Website

The website enables customers to access information on its product range, latest news. It allows customer involvement to share their recipe with Hovis through ‘Send in Your Recipes’ and engages in customer relationship with opt out ‘Sign up for a Bigger Bite’ e-mail newsletter offering customers updates on Hovis news and promotions. The website also includes information on its entire product range.

Social plug-ins (Figure 2) are incorporated on Hovis’s website to direct visitors or customers to Hovis’s Facebook page, Twitter, and YouTube channel.

Figure 2 Social plug-ins incorporated on Hovis’s website and each of its webpage

Source: Hovis (2011b)

Hovis website also enables visitors to communicate with Hovis by sending in emails, through ‘Drop Us A Line’, which function as customer support and CRM for Hovis customers.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Hovis’s Online Media

Hovis: Facebook page

Facebook is a social networking website. Hovis uses Facebook for customer relation purposes and for promotional purposes such as offering printable e-vouchers. Hovis also uses Facebook to get feedbacks and comments on its products, its advertisement, or to spark general everyday life conversations.

Figure 3 Illustrates an example of interactivity between Hovis and its customers from a section of its Facebook page.

Source: Facebook (2011)

A visitor who wishes to interact and receive updates from Hovis via Facebook must “Like” (follow or subscribe to) Hovis’s Facebook page. It enables informal interactivity with customers. Currently 130, 400 Facebook users are following Hovis’s Facebook page (Hovis Bakery; Facebook, 2012). Hovis updates and responds to activities on its Facebook page on a daily basis.

Hovis’s Online Media

Hovis: Twitter

Twitter is a social networking media and a microblog which allows its users to send, share (or re-tweet) and read short texts, called tweets. Hovis uses its Twitter account for CRM and customer relation such as customer service and support. However, Hovis is not very active, with its last activity on Twitter was on the 1 st of December 2011, checked on the 30th of December 2011 (Twitter, 2011).

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Hovis’s Online Media

Hovis: YouTube channel

YouTube is a video-sharing site which allows users to upload, view and share videos. Currently, Hovis uses YouTube to broadcast its video advertising of previous and current television advertisements (YouTube, 2011), allowing them to go viral.

YouTube enables Hovis to measure its overall audience either by channel views or total views of all uploaded videos. It can also measure its individual video or advertisement, for example, Hovis Farmers Race television advertisement for its soft white bread uploaded in April, 2011 achieved 34,041 views by December, 2011 on YouTube (YouTube, 2011).

YouTube allows viewers to subscribe to Hovis’s channel to opt for notification of any new video uploads to the channel. To opt out, subscribers can unsubscribe. However, currently Hovis only has 39 channel subscribers (YouTube, 2011).

However, Hovis’s activity on the site has been dormant for almost two years, with its latest activity on this site was on February 26th, 2010 (YouTube, 2012).

MICRO-ENVIRONMENT

Intermediaries

Grocery multiples play a dominant part in the bread and baked goods market, and account

88% of bread sales (Mintel, 2009). Hovis product ranges are sold online in UK supermarkets’

websites such as Tesco, Ocado, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Asda. The online grocery market

has been increasingly competitive, with online price comparison sites fuelling the

promotional competition of product offerings (Mintel, 2011c). For example, Waitrose,

Sainsbury’s and Tesco, all sell Hovis Soft White (800g) at £1.15 each, however Sainsbury

offers 3 loaves of Hovis Soft White (800g) for £3.00, while both Tesco and Waitrose offer 2

loaves for £2.00 at 30th December, 2011 (Waitrose, 2011; Sainsbury’s, 2011; Tesco, 2011).

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Potential Customers

High broadband penetration and internet usage among 16-24-year olds pose as potential

customers. This consumer segment is becoming increasingly health conscious and is

constantly looking for a healthier meal option (Mintel, 2011a).

Potential Online Customers for Hovis

Customer Segment Description

Women, 16-24-year-olds

This segment has high internet usage and online shopping, and is found to be keen on online grocery shopping. However, this segment is not within Hovis’s current target market (Mintel, 2011b). This segment is the most “tech-savvy” and dominates the use of variety of devices (e.g. laptops, desktops, mobile phones and smartphones) to access social networks (Mintel, 2011f).

Current level of Hovis brand awareness is assumed to be high for teenagers of ABC1, but reliant on prompted or aided brand recall, because bread purchase are likely be parents’ choice, usually women, 35-65 years old ABC1s (Mintel, 2008; 2011a). They are likely to be indifferent in brand preference for bread.

Due to Hovis’s engagement in social media marketing and internet, Hovis is exposed to a

variety of prospective customer in the form of virtual communities from the Facebook,

YouTube and Twitter communities.

Competitors

The online competition for Hovis’s product range is highly intense due to ease of price

comparison among competitors within the same e-retailer (Figure 4) and between e-retailers.

Hovis products are sold in multiple grocery websites, which often promote based on price

promotion, causing cannibalisation among Hovis products, within the same and among

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

different e-retailers. Its competition is intensified by other morning goods products, such as

cereals and other bakery items.

Hovis’s Online Competition

Direct Competitors Indirect Competitors

Competition among bread brands, such as Warburtons and Kingsmill, available on the same grocery store website or other grocery store websites (Mintel, 2011a).

Competition from outside the premium and healthy bread brands, but within breakfast foods range, such as cereal, cereal bars, and bakery products such as croissants (Mintel, 2011a) available on the same grocery store website or other grocery store websites.

Figure 4 Price comparison: Hovis and competitors within the same e-retailer

Source: Ocado.com (2011)

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

MACRO-ENVIRONMENT

External Influences on Hovis, the Bread Sector and the E-retailing Sector

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The UK government aims to make broadband available to all households in the UK by 2012 which includes increasing the broadband speed up to 100Mbp. Faster speed will potentially change the way in which the internet is used (Euromonitor, 2010) and make online social networking accessible to more people, especially the older and poorer consumers (Mintel, 2011f).

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Trend in Social Networking and Internet UseAccording to Euromonitor (2010) 51.4 million people in the UK are internet users. The average internet surfer spends 22 hours and 15 minutes on the internet each month, where most of that time is spent on social networks or blogs, which accounted for nearly one-quarter of the online time of users. Facebook dominates the social networking sites in the UK and will continue its dominance in the near future.Consumers are purchasing increasingly sophisticated smartphones capable of accessing the internet and have fully functional browsers, e-mail access, video players and cameras capable of recording videos (Euromonitor, 2010).Increase in Smartphone OwnershipSmartphone ownership is expected to increase due to falling hardware costs making handsets affordable to more consumers. Accordingly, An increase in smartphone adoption could lead to a similarly proportional increase in using the device to access social networks (Mintel, 2011f).Internet retailing is becoming increasingly popular in shopping for food and drinks, growing its market share from 2.1% in 2005 to 3.9% in 2009 which is being fuelled partly by consumers’ desire for convenience. (Euromonitor, 2010).

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Broadband PenetrationHigh level of internet penetration in UK households has been a key factor contributing to the strong performance of internet retailers (Euromonitor, 2011). Conversely, slowing growth in broadband penetration suggests levels are approaching saturation, with less potential to drive rapid growth in online shopping (Mintel, 2011d).Growing Processing Power of Smartphones.According to smartphone users, smartphones will be more than adequate to meet their online needs, such as social networking and e-mailing (Euromonitor, 2010). Furthermore, mobile internet access via the mobile phone network became increasingly popular as it was a low cost despite the slower speed of broadband (Euromonitor, 2010).Growth of M-commerceM-commerce is growing in popularity, as mobile phones become increasingly sophisticated as retailers and e-retailers alike continue to introduce more mobile phone applications (Euromonitor, 2011).

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

SWOT ANALYSISIN

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STRENGTHS

Hovis’s interlinked digital media allows increased exposure and traffic to each media. Hence, contribute towards Hovis’s brand exposure and building equity.

Hovis is relatively active in its Facebook page and very responsive to public queries and comments.

WEAKNESSES

Hovis online consumers are somewhat restricted to women of 25-44 years, as opposed of its overall target market of 35-65 years old, unappealing online to its over-45s women due to lack of interest and usage of the internet.

Consumers who tend to snack are typically aged between 15-34 years (Mintel, 2008). Hovis’s ‘Stop me Snacking’ campaign does not target this segment.

Inactive in its YouTube and Twitter accounts, which omits the benefits it could have reaped from viral impact of social media optimisation.

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Growing popularity of m-commerce. High internet usage

and online shopping among 16-24-year-olds using electronic devices such as laptop and smartphones (Mintel, 2011b).

16-24-years-old consumers are moving towards nutritional diet and seek functional foods and products that promise to enhance their health and wellness (Euromonitor, 2010; Mintel, 2011e).

Brown, wholemeal and granary breads are experiencing a rise in consumer base.

THREATS

Intense competition within the online premium bread market fuelled by ease of price comparison between e-retailing sites.

Intense competition may remove Hovis brand from consumers’ evoked set.

RECOMMENDATIONS

16-24-years-old consumers are moving towards a healthy lifestyle. Hovis should expand its

brand exposure to young adult and women aged between 16-24 years. Moreover, Hovis

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

should create its e-promotional campaign to utilize the high internet usage and broadband

penetration among ABC1 16-24-year-olds. Furthermore, the high usage of smartphones

among this group, recommends Hovis to consider mobile application which allows nutritional

tracking through barcode scanning of Hovis packaging using smartphones. However, despite

the prospect of nutritional tracking application to respond to the health-seeking 16-24-years-

olds, Hovis should first establish brand awareness among this age group.

The ability of the youngest consumers of 16-24-year-olds to purchase online is restricted by

lack of suitable banking facilities and lack of participation in household shopping for bread

(Mintel, 2011c). Nevertheless, Hovis should seek to increase its brand exposure and offerings

to the younger consumer of the age group to build brand equity among this consumer

segment. Older consumer of the 16-24-years-old age group have more purchasing power,

hence Hovis should also seek to induce trial of their brand and to utilise all of Hovis’s

existing online marketing media.

E-MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS OBJECTIVE

To induce trial of Hovis’s Original Wheatgerm range by ABC1 women aged 15-34-years-old,

by increasing sales by 80, 000 loaves in 12 months, in the UK market.

E-MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY

The target audience will be a consumer segment. The e-marketing communication strategy

will be a pull-dominated strategy. With regards to the DRIP roles of the marketing

communications, the strategy will focus on information and persuasion.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

E-MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS MIX

Hovis’s e-communication mix will be social media marketing, entailing two main activities:

viral video marketing and Hovis Facebook challenge. The e-communication tactics on how it

is intended to impact its audience can be illustrated based on Strong’s (1925) AIDA model.

KNOWLEDGE FEELING MOTIVATION → ACTION

Viral Video MarketingIntended outcome: Attention, Interest & Desire

Hovis Facebook ChallengeIntended outcome: Desire & Action

Adapted from: Egan (2007)

The e-marketing communication mix will attempt to set and increase unaided brand

awareness and instil positive attitude towards Hovis, and subsequently induce trial (Egan,

2007). According to Challinor (2011), it is not factories which make profits but relations with

customers, and it is the brand which secure these relationships. Hence, the role of the

proposed e-communication mix is to build brand equity through community building by an

integration of using emotional and consumer participation to stimulate trial of Hovis’s

Original Wheatgerm range in.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media marketing is an interactive based, two-way marketing effort. It is defined as the

act of using social platforms for marketing and public relations (Greenmarketing.tv, 2010). It

is about creating, engaging and maintaining long-term interactive and social relationship with

customers (Evans and McKee, 2010).

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ATTENTION INTEREST DESIRE ACTION

E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

The Role of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing enables customers to initiate an interaction at any time and from

anywhere, before, during or after the process of marketing exchange. Interactivity provides

immense opportunity for relationship building among customers (Luck and Lancaster, 2003).

The role of social media marketing for Hovis is to build brand equity through promotion,

sales promotion and community building in order to stimulate trial. This will be discussed in

the following sections of this report.

Hovis is already engaging in social web marketing, hence the proposed campaigns will utilise

Hovis’s existing social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as well as Hovis’s

video-sharing channel on YouTube.

Social Media Marketing

Advantages Social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organisations to implement

marketing campaigns (Anjum, 2010). Use of social media for engagement in two-way conversation by a brand has the ability

to humanise the brand (Mintel, 2011f). Social networking with consumers improves public relations, customer service and

market or consumer research. Social networking empowers word-of-mouth marketing and drives traffic to a firm’s

website (Scott, 2008). Social interaction with consumers allows consumers to move beyond product

consumption, enabling them to contribute to the improvement of product offering. Hence, allows better understanding of customers and reduced effort for market research in predicting or guessing consumer needs.

Disadvantage

Viral social disadvantage. Miscommunication or mistakes in brand or marketing online strategy can cause viral damage of reputation (Scott, 2008).

Requires extremely high commitment. Social media networking and technology means that consumers and customers will be able to communicate with Hovis at anytime and anywhere. Lack of commitment to respond or interact with customers can be damaging to the brand (Mandrusiak, 2011).

Time consuming. The social media pages and profile need to be constantly monitored, and constantly need to be updated (Mandrusiak, 2011).

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

VIRAL VIDEO MARKETING

Viral marketing is about turning customers into a marketing force through word-of-mouth or

word-of-mouse communications among consumers (Phelps et al., 2004; Scott, 2008) in a

digital environment. The objective of this campaign is to increase brand exposure and

ultimately build brand equity of Hovis among the target audience. Hence the role of the e-

marketing communication campaign is promotion.

Hovis’s viral marketing will be a form of video, which will use an emotional approach with

involvement-based framework, which emphasizes on drawing members of the target

audience into the video and eliciting a largely emotional response (Fill, 2005).

Viral Video MarketingAdvantages Marketing message has a higher spread rate through social networking media (Scott,

2008; Makkar, 2011). Financially cost-effective and less effort compared to traditional advertising modes. Cost

will only cover production costs. It mainly uses brainpower, time, energy and imagination (Levinson, 2010). For example, it does not involve any financial cost from broadcasting or uploading it on YouTube channel.

Remarkable growth in comparatively lesser time. It is a quicker and more effective mode of reaching the audience (Makkar, 2011).

Brand exposure and interest will lead to increased traffic to other online media, such as website.

Uploading video on social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube will allow Hovis to observe audiences’ reactions towards the video through comments, ‘likes’ and shares.

Disadvantages Nothing is guaranteed to go viral (Scott, 2008). It is highly dependent on the efforts of

the audience to share and spread the message. Results directly attributable to viral marketing campaign is unquantifiable – measuring

true interest. Negative publicity is possible at the same speed of positive publicity or even higher

speed than that (Scott, 2008). Unpredicted volume of expose and effectiveness. This means that it is difficult for Hovis

to be sure that its website is robust enough and scale with a potentially, unexpected huge traffic.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Proposed Viral Video Marketing Plan

Video will include informal informative health benefits of wheatgerm. The theme and filming colours will depict the traditional British farm environment, to maintain Hovis’s brand value of heritage. Video will be featured by actors and non-actors from the 15-34-years-old segment.

The message appeal will be a combination of emotional appeal and humour, as consumers’ affective arousal has the ability to influence their attention process (Peter and Olson, 2008) throughout the video whilst establishing a deep, long-held emotional brand association (Thinkbox.tv, 2011). Ultimately, this will potentially stimulate desire.

Note: This report is focused on Hovis’s online delivery of e-marketing communication plan. Hence, details of filming and the video will not be further detailed.

HOVIS FACEBOOK VIDEO CHALLENGE

Facebook is a social networking site. Hovis uses Facebook for customer relation purposes, to

get feedbacks and comments on its products or advertisement, and initiate general everyday

life conversations with the public.

Hovis Facebook challenge will be a form of social media marketing, which involves high

participation and interactivity with the target audience. The aim of this campaign is to

stimulate desire and eventually induce trial of Hovis product by engaging the target audience

through participation and interactive communication. The campaign will be a relatively short-

term objective.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Proposed Hovis Facebook Video Challenge Plan

Inspired by Hovis’s previous Facebook challenges, such as the current Facebook challenge called the Hovis Wholemeal Gold Start Challenge The challenge on Facebook aimed at women aged 25-44 years to stop snacking.

This new video challenge will specifically encourage the target audience to participate. The challenge will be to encourage audience to respond to Hovis’s viral video, by recording the role of Hovis in their daily life using their own creativity, with a prize of the most creative to win a monthly supply, for 6 months (four loaves per month) of Hovis wheatgerm bread.

The Hovis Facebook challenge campaign holds the role of community building and sales

promotion. According to Kalyanam and McIntyre (2002) e-marketing activities involving

special inducements to encourage a relationship partner to participate in a specific act by a

certain time is considered as sales promotion. Moreover, the involvement and participation of

customers in the sales promotion activity is a form of relational exchange and community

building.

The campaign will be regulated through Facebook and Twitter which will enable users or

participants to share their videos on Hovis’s Facebook page or through YouTube account.

PLANNING: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Hovis’s social media marketing will utilise Hovis’s current online media platforms;

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The function of all three media overlap one another in

terms of spreading the video and message, however collectively they raise the potential of

increased exposure and heighten the potential of the campaigns going viral, as compared to

using only one media platform.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

Planning: Social Media Marketing

The target segment for Hovis’s e-marketing campaign is ABC1 women aged between 16-24-years. Hence, Hovis will recruit individuals from the target segment, from outside the organisation to influence the production of the campaign, in order to relate the e-marketing campaign more effectively to the target segment.

Viral Video MarketingUploading a 3-minute video on social networking sites associated with and highly visited by the target audience: YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (Mintel, 2011f).

Hovis Facebook ChallengeThis campaign will be implemented through communication via Facebook post and a Twitter tweet through two of Hovis’s online media platforms: Facebook, and Twitter.Exposure will be reliant on the assisted traffic caused by viral video marketing to Hovis’s Facebook and Twitter page.

SCHEDULING & IMPLEMENTATION

E-Marketing Mix Period2012

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Viral MarketingPlanning 01/03/12 30/03/12Recording 01/04/12 30/04/12Pre-testing 01/05/12 25/05/12Release:

YouTube 25/06/12 -Facebook 25/06/12 -Twitter 25/06/12 -Website 25/06/12 -

Facebook ChallengeFacebook 25/07/12 25/11/12Twitter 25/07/12 25/11/12

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KeyPlanningRecordingPre-test of finished videoRelease/upload/campaign onCampaign off

E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

CONTROL & EVALUATION

The e-marketing campaign will be implemented by Hovis’s marketing team. Evaluation will

be conducted to measure the effectiveness of the e-communication mix and to ensure that the

intended messages is encoded correctly and are capable of being decoded accurately by the

target audience (Fill, 2005). Tests will involve pre-testing of the finished campaign and post-

testing.

Pre-testing

Viral Video Marketing – A focus group of 8-10 people from the target segment will be used to evaluate the impact of the video on the target audience. The focus group will be invited to view the video prior to a depth-discussion concerning their perceptions and on whether they are willing to share and spread the video through their social networking medias.Hovis Facebook Challenge – Similarly, a focus group of 8-10 people from the target segment will be used to share their opinion of the activity. The focus group will be invited to view and read planned invitational post prior to posting on Facebook and Twitter. They will be asked to discuss their perceptions, the attractiveness of the challenge, and their level of willingness to participate in the activity and willingness to share the Facebook challenge through their social networking medias.

Post-testing

Recall tests can be used to measure the effects of the viral video promotion, based on the impressions, recall and perceptions of the target audience. Tests can take in the form of personal interviews and internet surveys.

Evaluation

To evaluate the overall effectiveness of the e-marketing communication, the level of sales that occurs during the campaign and after 12 months from the release date will be monitored.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

IMPLICATIONS: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Implications

The use of social media marketing for building brand equity and community building is time consuming and involves high commitment to nurture and maintain stable long-term relationships with customers. However it reaps significant benefit in the long-term, such as brand loyalty and customer commitment (Luck and Lancaster, 2003), offer and allow development of superior products that meet customer tastes and preferences resulting from closer and interactive relationship with customers. This is especially valuable in the mature bread market, with lack of product differentiation (Mintel, 2011a). Social interaction with customers will also enable a firm to look at its business and brand through its customer’s eyes and effectively measure its performance against customers’ expectations.

According to Facebook (2010) people who click the Facebook ‘Like’ button are more engaged, active and connected than the average Facebook user. The average “liker” has 2.4 times the amount of friends than that of a typical Facebook user. They are also more interested in exploring content they discover on Facebook, and they click on 5.3 times more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user. Hence, this can have impact on Hovis’s website, such as increased traffic to Hovis’s website, and access to other information such as Hovis’s product ranges, and ultimately stimulate interest for product trial. Accordingly, marketers or Hovis’s web developer should be ready to ensure Hovis’s website is robust and scale with an unexpected sudden increase of traffic.

Facebook enables Hovis to monitor and gain insights of participating audiences’ activities on the page, through comments, shares and likes of the Facebook challenge or any type of activities by Hovis and similarly with YouTube, viewers’ activities such as comments on the video can provide valuable feedback to Hovis regarding the campaigns. Both Facebook and YouTube provide analytic and statistical components regarding Hovis’s online community, including demographic information, such as age, gender, and geographic location, which will offer valuable information for market research.

Moreover, the use of different media allows social media optimisation for Hovis to reach online communities from different social media sites; the YouTube community, Facebook community and Twitter community. However, since Hovis’s e-marketing focus is on brand building, internal marketing to staff involved with interacting with customers throughout the campaigns is vital. Company brand strategies must be communicated to staff so they understand Hovis’s ethos on which the brand is built.

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E-Marketing Analysis: Hovis 2011

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