Andy's Answers: How Quaker Oats brought Cap'n Crunch to life in social media - SmartBrief

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Andy’s Answers: How Quaker Oats brought Cap’n Crunch to life in social media

2 min read

Brands & Campaigns

Most brands make the leap to social media to recruit followers and to establish a fan base. But for some brands, it’s the fans who ask (or demand) for the brand to get involved in social media.

At Quaker Oats, this pull from its loyal enthusiasts is what helped bring the company’s iconic Cap’n Crunch mascot into the social space. In her BlogWell presentation, Quaker’s Barbara Liss showed how the company introduced the character to an eager audience — and how it all helped drive a 3% to 5% increase in baseline sales.

Some of her take-aways:

  • Be the character. The Cap’n is always in character — and this is a fundamental part of the brand’s strategy with the mascot. His tweets and posts are in his voice (not the brand’s), and so the company created a whole story about being away at sea to explain his delay in joining social media.
  • Ask for advice. In one of his first Facebook posts, the Cap’n asked fans what they wanted to see on his fan page — and he got hundreds of responses filled with suggestions and ideas.
  • Stay active. Barbara and her team partner with an agency to create an average of seven weekly Facebook posts (and roughly 78 more replies to fans in those posts) and an average of 57 tweets per day. They’re not just dipping their toes in social, they’re diving in – and their fans are loving it.

Watch Liss’ case study. Slides are available.