Rewarding Real Life Product Placement - Brand Recognition in Instagram Photos

Author: Brian Patterson
Published: January 02, 2014 at 9:19 pm ShareTweet  Chances are you haven’t heard of Bolthouse Farms before, but if their new marketing campaign performs as they hope, that just may change. Bolthouse Farms is a purveyor of fruit and vegetable juice blends, akin to popular brands such as Nantucket Nectars, Naked Juice, and Odwalla. Bolthouse Farms’ drinks are sold nationally, are likely in your local grocery store, and its even possible that you’ve bought their products before.  However, to date, strong branding and recognition has been an issue, hence a fresh, new marketing campaign. Instagram Image Recognition Beginning at the end of October, and with the help of ad agency Tiny Rebellion and RevTrax, a marketing technology company that drives in-store sales through digital coupons, Bolthouse rolled out a technology that identifies its products in images posted on Instagram, and rewards those users with coupons when they they’ve shared a product picture (on a non-private account) and used the hashtags #gotcoupon and #carrotfarmers.   Tiny Rebellion built a tool that monitors the Twitter firehose, and anytime the Bolthouse logo is spotted in an image (generally on a bottle), it is flagged by their tool.  In Bolthouse’s campaign, however, the coupon is only issued if the user takes the extra step of also using the two campaign hashtags. Once the system checks that the hashtags were used, it issues a $1.50 coupon and notifies the image sharer via a comment directly on their image, all in about 60 seconds.  The coupon can then be printed off, but only by the image poster as the ‘print’ button is behind an Instagram login screen that validates that the user is indeed authorized to print the coupon. Although very clever, the system isn’t perfect yet.  For example, the tool didn’t initially recognize my image when the bottle was posted to Instagram, so Bolthouse’s backup plan kicked-in and a coupon was manually issued about an hour after my test. Also, I was left wanting a little more than the auto-response of “Bottle Recognized!” before the coupon details were provided.  But that is a personal preference and something easily changed as the campaign evolves.  The Results I spoke with Pamela Naumes, Director of Brand Engagement at Bolthouse Farms, to get a better understanding of the program and its success.  Naumes explained that prints of the coupon from this campaign are higher than all of their other current online marketing channels, including Facebook ads and paid search. And of the people who are invited to print the coupon, 65 percent actually do, a statistic the Bolthouse Farms team is quite proud of.  Although exact numbers weren’t shared, a quick search of the hashtag #carrotfarmers on statigr.am shows that it has been used 5,697 thus far.  Assuming those are all legitimate entries, that would put 65 percent coupon prints at somewhere around 3,700.  Not bad distribution for two months.  Overall, Naumes states, that, “What we love about this program is that, unlike TV or print, this does three things:  It drives awareness that we own the farms.  It drives trial of our beverages. And it’s driving engagement”.    Are you following @BolthouseFarms on Instagram? We love all of their creative 15 second recipes: http://t.co/BlPHYy591z— Campbell Soup Co (@CampbellSoupCo) December 4, 2013 Because of this social success, Bolthouse Farms has decided to extend the campaign longer than originally planned, and invest more in January to promote the program more fully.       About this article Article Author: Brian Patterson

Brian Patterson is a Washington, DC-based Online Reputation Management consultant, author, and speaker. Brian has helped individuals and firms solve a wide range of complex online reputation issues. Follow him on Twitter.

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