Haagen-Dazs Extends Social Media Effort

'Help the Honey Bees' Exceeds Online Goals

Posted by Karen Egolf on 11.10.09 @ 12:15 PM

Haagen-Dazs is extending its "Help the Honey Bees" social media campaign based on its initial success that generated 13 million impressions. The company had originally targeted 1 million impressions for the effort, which ran Aug. 4 through Sept. 28.

Working with ExperienceProject.com, Haagen-Dazs wanted to educate the public about the mysterious epidemic of hive collapse, called Colony Collapse Disorder, and its threat to global well-being. The campaign, which will now run through Dec. 31, drew more than 56,000 unique users and added almost 12,000 new supporters, Haagen-Dazs announced today.

Haagen-Dazs used EP's online Marketing Accelerator Model, which involves highly targeted user groups already deeply engaged in environmental discussions on the site who are likely to spread the "Help the Honey Bees" message to others.

To help expand the effort, Haagen-Dazs added EP's TwitCause, the largest social cause portal on Twitter, to encourage people to spread the campaign message while raising money through Tweets. From Nov. 5 to 11, Haagen-Dazs brand is donating $1 per tweet, up to $1,000 a day, to the University of California at Davis for CCD research on the mystery and to the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee-friendly garden and education center.

The social media campaign is part of Year 2 of Haagen-Dazs' "Help the Honey Bees" effort. "As these campaigns run into their second year, it's hard to gain traction," says Tonya Iles, interactive manager of Haagen-Dazs. "We wanted to find unique and different ways to engage people with this—we want to keep it top of mind.

"When [EP] approached us, they let us know who their audience was. It really felt like a good fit," Ms. Iles says. "Their audience is people who care about something. They're heavily involved people who want to share information."

EP set up activities on its site to raise the profile of "Help the Honey Bees," including a challenge for people to eat naturally for a week, highlighting the fact that Haagen-Dazs is an all-natural product, and a photo contest, where people could post pictures of themselves planting bee-friendly flowers. "It was a way to involve people in a way that was fun and give them a different brand experience than advertising or buying our ice cream," Ms. Iles says.

So far, Haagen-Dazs says it is pleased with its social media campaign. "This is a real cause that really does affect us, so it's about bringing awareness to the honey bee crisis in addition to [the fact that] there's people behind the product who care about the cause," Ms. Iles says.