Winner CIM Best Agency NI
Dale Farm
How a dairy brand increased their followers by 1,018% in just one month
Who are Dale Farm?
What started as a milk company back in 1969 has grown to become an iconic dairy brand, supplying a wide range of products to 45 countries worldwide. One thing that hasn’t changed is our ability to make people happy – from the simple pleasure of milky tea to the joy and delight of a delicious ice-cream dessert.
What was the struggle?
Consumer research revealed that a lot of people were unaware Dale Farm is farmer owned, which is something they are really proud of. Therefore, Dale Farm went through an extensive rebrand, bringing the ‘farm’ front and centre of our packaging and products.
Throughout the rebrand stage, one area Dale Farm wanted to improve was brand awareness and sales in ROI, along with the fact that the brand is owned by over 1,300 farmers across Ireland. Therefore, the main KPI for Digital 24 was to increase their following down south over the Summer period (June – August 2021).
The results of Digital 24’s Influencer & Paid Advertising Strategy
Influencer Marketing
To celebrate the rebrand, and the launch of the new Rapture signature, Digital 24 decided to go down the influencer marketing route, to help spread the word and increase their following in Ireland. The Digital 24 team decided to split this campaign into two key segments – gifted influencers for brand awareness, and paid influencers to run competitions in order for us to see an increase in following.
After extensive research, we decided to work with Grainne Mc Coy, Everything Eileen, Clementine MacNeice and Sabrina Hill on a paid basis. With over 200,000 followers at the time, we had a budget of £10,000 to create an all round influencer marketing campaign which would include competition prizes, product delivery and influencer fees.
In order to see an increase in following, a competition was the way forward. However, in order to gain a following, the competition prize had to be high value. With Dale Farm Rapture being a premium brand, we decided to give away a premium personal shopping experience at Brown Thomas, with a £200 voucher, along with afternoon tea for two at the Merrion Hotel and a personalised bracelet from Jack Murphy Jewellers. Each influencer had a prize worth £500 to give away, along with an exclusive Dale Farm Rapture hamper which allowed the influencers to create their own Rapture lolly with topping of their choice.
Whilst running the paid influencer activity, we also worked with other content creators on a gifted basis to spread the word. Gifting a gourmet Rapture hamper which included key messaging around the rebrand and the new Rapture Signature range.
Brand awareness campaign
While working with influencers to spread the word, Digital 24 also ran a paid advertising campaign with two objectives – brand awareness, and traffic. The first ad was to get as many eyes on the new brand as possible, whilst also getting traffic to the website to find their local stockist of the Rapture signature range. The results speak for themselves.
182,119
Total reach
532,428
Total impressions
16,360
Estimated ad recalls
ROI traffic campaign
38,710
Total reach
542
Landing page views
Outcome
We decided to run the paid influencer activity during the first two weeks in July, with each influencer having a specific date to go live so the competitions were spaced out. We launched the campaign with Grainne, followed by Sabrina, Clementine and Eileen.
When the competition went live on the influencer’s grid – the mechanic was to follow Dale Farm, like the post and tag a friend they would like to bring along to the premium shopping experience. In a matter of days, we gained thousands of followers.
When the campaign ended, we saw an increase of 3,679 new followers. We also noted over 1.7 million impressions on Dale Farm’s Instagram page alone, resulting in an engagement rate of 21.84% for the month of July.
