FreshNetworks Blog

Morrisons Delivery Truck (Credit: kenjonbro)

The recent horsemeat scandal has highlighted the vital importance of businesses having a solid crisis communications plan, and making sure that social media is integral to this.

With all the major supermarkets and food producers active in social channels, it was no surprise that many consumers took to Twitter and Facebook to look for information and ask questions about the provenance of the meat they’d bought, as well as the potential safety risks of eating contaminated produce. However, while many supermarket chains and producers were left scrambling to explain how horsemeat had got into the supply chain, Morrisons quietly set about capitalising on the crisis, and used its social media channels as the main point of communication to do so.

So how did Morrisons go about doing this? Firstly, it’s important to understand how its business model differs greatly from that of its competitors. Unbeknown to most consumers, the Leeds-based supermarket is Britain’s largest food manufacturer. This is thanks to its strict policy of farm-to-fork vertical integration, and the fact it owns 18 food manufacturing plants with over 7,000 employees. This very different business model has allowed it the enviable position of being able to boast about the security of its supply chain on own-brand products.

Quite simply, Morrisons buys animals directly from farmers and sends them to their own abattoirs. The meat is then available for purchase over the counter, or – and here’s where some of those food manufacturing plants come in – it supplies its own food preparation sites with meat in order to make its own-brand pies, sausages, cooked meats and other products.

Up until three weeks ago, Morrisons has been promoting this business model by extolling the benefits to farmers, and promoting its better quality control, reduced waste and better use of resources. Now, however, fate has handed Morrisons a marketing message that its competitors were unable to deploy for themselves.

A Morrisons Facebook update

And Morrisons has certainly been quick to deploy these marketing messages; regularly taking to its social channels to remind customers of the fact that it controls its own supply chain, which has also– so far – remained completely clear of contaminated meat. And these messages have gone down well, with its horse-free meat updates being shared by thousands of customers both loyal and new at a time when much of the chatter in social was at its most hysterical and humorous.

Twitter - Search - Morrisons horsemeat

And it’s paying off. In the last few weeks Morrisons’ butchers sales have increased by nearly 20% since the crisis broke. As you can see in the graph below, the number of people talking about Morrisons in Facebook has exploded and they’ve earned themselves thousands of new followers. Nevertheless, having dealt with the horsemeat scandal so capably, they now face a new challenge – how will they keep those new customers and fans engaged and coming back, and how will they continue to maintain and develop their online presence?

People Talking About Morrisons

FMCG brands are often some of the most innovative in their use of digital and social media but this great presentation from Helge Tennø shows the importance of staying ahead of the market. And of continuing to innovate what you are doing, to avoid becoming what he calls a Big Lazy Brand.

His presentation outlines five ways to market FMCG brands in social media:

1. Use your marketing activities to impact how consumers feel about your brand, not just what they know about it
2. Build direct connections with consumers, rather than letter retailers have this connection. Engage them and have a dialogue
3. Use your marketing  activities to be part of their life, from home to the office to the store where they finally make a purchase
4. Remember that in social media it is about them and not just about you. This isn’t the place for a one-way conversation or for just telling them things. Ask questions and get ideas
5. Don’t confuse social media with media, the two things are different and need different strategies and approaches

Tennø’s presentation reflects well on the need for brands to move from just thinking about campaigns in social media, to thinking about ways in which they can use it to engage consumers in a sustained manner. For FMCG firms, who often have little direct contact with their consumers, this is of critical importance. Viral videos and buzz can be great, but too often it can leave users remembering the video or the game, but not remembering the brand. Engagement, on an ongoing basis, sees greater return for the brand and is a more effective use of social media marketing.

The presentation is Required Reading this week at FreshNetworks for its great thinking and the number of case studies and examples that it uses. It also highlights what we think of as an over-riding consideration for social media marketing: Digital is not a silo, it needs to integrate with other online and offline activities.