Michael Kelly – Consumer Communications Manager for American Licorice Company presented RedVines’ World Of Sharing at the 20 Oct 2010 SFNewTech event.
American Licorice Company was founded almost a century ago in 1914, opening up shop in San Francisco in 1920. Michael said that while the process of making RedVines hasn’t changed much in decades, the way they market them to consumers has. As consumers shift their attention online and away from traditional media, American Licorice has had to learn the ropes of the social web and get engaged in the online conversation.
The Red Vines ‘World of Sharing‘ is the latest in a series of engagements seeking to build awareness about the brand outside or their core Western markets and generate some very positive social chatter about the brand online.
Michael then visited the redvines world of sharing facebook page which leads into the website, and demostrated the process of adding a vine by posting a positive message on the website. Each message grows a 1 mile long virtual redvine around the globe. Their goal is to get to 24,000 redvines to wrap the globe completely. As the vine goes around the world, it will award users 240 4 lb. jars of Red Vines Licorice, 24 Prize packs with Red Vines Candy and Gear, and one grand prize of $5,000 to be used for a trip around the world.
Michael said monetization wasn’t their goal with this campaign. RedVines put on their “startup hat” here to figure out how to guide the people (/consumers) through the process of growing the virtual vine. Austin Harrison & Jesse Nicely at Dentsu America are the agency partners who helped create and design the RedVines World Of Sharing social campaign.
Competition?
Backstage Michael told us about RedVines’ competition and how in this niche, there isn’t really much of brand wars going on because of consumer brand loyalty.
Michael: Twizzlers, made by Hershey’s is the primary competition for Red Vines. There is a distinct regional split between Red Vines Territory West of the Rockies and Twizzler Territory East of the Rockies. People are very passionate when it comes to candy and licorice lovers especially are known to be very brand loyal. Every day we see the great licorice debate play out on Twitter and Facebook where people discuss which team they’re on. Regardless of which brand they like, we all win as the conversation pushes the entire licorice category forward.
Links, Contact Info?
RedVines
RedVines World Of Sharing (look for World of Sharing tab)
Twitter: @RedVines
Blog: crazydelicious
Michael : Mkelly @ amerlic.com