5 eggcellent ways to engage over Easter

Easter, the nation’s second biggest retail spend of the year is here and as we all scurry about to get together and spend this season with our family and friends, marketeers and businesses all over the country release campaigns and promotions to entice us to join in with the seasonal festivities. This specific family fun and games audience makes the season a great opportunity for brands to really communicate their fun side, at the same time as promoting their ever growing products. But what ways can we actively engage users and create a following at this time of year?

1. How to tips

It makes sense that in such a family orientated season, as the kids play outside and the grandparents nap on the sofa, we may find ourselves with a little extra time on our hands. We are by nature inquisitive creatures, constantly on the look out for the next project, therefore giving marketeers a great opportunity to create some real brand exposure by offering tips and advice to help capture the need to distract. ‘How to’ guides on crafts and recipes are a great way to engage users, whether for ourselves or to keep the kids distracted, we appreciate the help in dealing with the intense concentration of family this time of year.

Creating activities that can be done together or targeting individuals in the family unit are a great way to connect with our audience, with a possibility of product promotion. E.g. Sainsbury’s are great at this. They create recipes each month and suggest the ingredients in store to make them with. Brilliant idea to not only offer up some tips but also the convenience and sale of their own products.

Taking this a step further, why not create a video guide to creating a recipe, taking the reading effort out of it altogether? So Yummy are brilliant at this, using a great stop frame feel to show the recipe as if the user is making it themselves. Making it more interactive and memorable.

Also and this is a given, this time of year is all about colour, from the flowers starting to bud to the pure colour of the endless Easter eggs on the shelves at our local supermarket. The use of colour in recipes and tasks is integral in capturing your audiences attention, excite them visually first.

2. Social media exposure

Not all marketing is purely focussed on sales alone, in fact the most clever and memorable campaigns are those that get us to do something just for fun and with such platforms as social media, accessing audiences and creating such games and competitions has never been easier or less invasive.

Waitrose are great at this. Choosing the sharing nature of the Easter season as well as playing on the millennial need to give to charity a few years ago, by creating a great little social media campaign that got users to use the hashtag #goodegg when sharing their Easter photos, offering up prizes and a donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital. A great double sided campaign that made people feel good and proud as well as offering up an incentive of prizes. The supermarket did well in getting great exposure and adding to their immaculate store values. Not so much a monetary exercise but more brand awareness.

3. Topics: Not just about chocolate..

It can be hard for a lot of us to think past the chocolate this time of year, especially if you have kids constantly asking for it. This can be the same with campaigns, thinking about what other topics we can talk about that aren’t cliched and stand out. Do we choose the Spring or family angle? The family target audience of the season is a great jumping point, from the lessons we want to teach our kids, as with other holidays such as Christmas and birthdays, the need to share with others and to be grateful.

A supermarket that has jumped on this sharing band wagon is Morrisons. This year the supermarket has been giving out individually wrapped little hot cross buns on its doors for free, with the intention for the receiver to pass it on to another. A lovely low budget and great way of promoting the company’s caring values.

Or perhaps another topic area which may be overlooked this time of year is to be controversial? Stand out from the crowd like Marmite and Pot Noodle have done?

Whatever the topic you choose, remember that this time of year is also about showing your soft silly side, don’t be afraid to be a little obvious with a hint of ‘dad humour,’ audiences expect it above all other seasons in the year, so don’t fear the ‘eggstra’ words to ‘eggsplain’ the season.

4. Make it fun

Everyone loves a good competition or game, so why not create a simple Easter themed version? It doesn’t need to be a full on Mario type game, but a simple spot the difference or crossword with prizes will really help users engage with your brand. A few years ago Tesco’s launched a quaint little Easter egg hunt game to coincide with the augmented reality craze using Google Maps to hide their Easter eggs. The game saw the user go in search of hidden eggs on street corners with the use of GPS on their phones. A great little relevant game that got users talking. To read more about the game, click here.

However if you do decide to offer a prize, make sure you think about delivery timings and prize itself very carefully, as there is no point in giving away Easter eggs 2 weeks after Easter.

5. An eggstra incentive

What can seem obvious can sometimes be the best engaging campaigns, for we all love a discount after all. With a season dominated by expense, from the Easter eggs we buy and the roast dinners we make to the travelling costs of transporting family members it makes sense that a discount promotion is somewhat sought after at this time of year. So why not play up the usual discount platforms such as Club card points and loyalty cards, giving away a little ‘eggstra’ this season?

Top 3 eggsperimental favourites

We know this may seem cliched and we’re not going to bore you with the usual run down of favourites but there has been an influx of a certain type of egg this year that we thought was worth a mention.

1. ‘Happy Yeaster’ Marmite egg

This is NOT a drill. This egg actually exists and has caused such controversy which you could say is perfect synergy to the product itself. The chocolate has been combined with the classic beefy flavour of the product itself, hmmm we’re not sure about this one.

2. ‘Bombay Bad Boy’ Pot Noodle egg

A common theme this year is the strange and peculiar and Pot Noodle have jumped on board with their ‘Bombay Bad Boy.’ The egg itself comprises of chilli and chocolate, a somewhat new and delicate combination on the culinary scene right? Wrong. Many consumers have hated this combination, likening it to hell.

3. ‘Happy Cheester’ egg

Not a chocolate fan? Why not try Wildes Cheese Cheester Egg? Yep a whole egg made purely of cheese. Dreamy?

New Easter and confectionery strategy?

We’ve noticed this movement penetrate the market over the past few years and it seems to be sticking. The traditional is becoming the abnormal and risky, where confectioners are trying almost to shock their audiences by using different combinations to try and entice further markets. Maybe causing controversy is a great tactic at engaging audiences as it definitely gets people talking. But is it going a little too far? Could this sweet Russian roulette be catching on where we no longer want this tradition, instead to be shocked as our horror movies and marketing strategies do? With such sweets as chocolate covered insects and chilli and chocolate combinations becoming more popular, maybe this sweet and sour favour is the start of a new sweet revolution?