2012: Thorntons, Teamwork Award - Case Study

Business objectives:

1. Creating wonder and raising awareness of the Thorntons brand amongst new and lapsed customers, reestablishing Thorntons relevancy and building attitudinal loyalty.
2. Raising morale amongst all Thorntons employees, celebrating our Centenary with them.

The Scale of the Task:

• Brand Perception & History – the Thorntons brand is one which is loved by millions of chocoholics across Britain. In celebrating such a milestone, Thorntons needed to do something that was engaging and in keeping with such an important celebration and something that not only celebrated with the business but also with customers. Whilst there are many Thorntons loyalists out there, there are also many people who perceive Thorntons to be an outdated and irrelevant brand. The Centenary was a perfect opportunity to put wonder and fun back into the brand, and surprise and delight those people that had forgotten what a great British institution Thorntons is.

• Big brand, Big ideas, Small budget – Thorntons is on every high street, in supermarkets and online, so you’d be forgiven for thinking the business is bigger than it actually is. In relation to other high street retailers and chocolate makers, Thorntons is one of the smaller players, reflected in the shoestring budget it had to celebrate its Centenary year, which included product creation, marketing and PR and celebrating with staff, - all under £300,000.

• Fantastic Four - the Centenary Dream Team – In the absence of big budgets, Thorntons needed big ideas and importantly a brilliant team to deliver the Centenary business objectives. The ‘Centenary Dream Team’ was a cross-functional internal team of just four people, who all volunteered and worked tirelessly together for 18 months, on top of their usual day jobs to make Thorntons Centenary year a huge success.

Key Successes

• Thorntons broke the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Bar of Chocolate at 5,762.5kgs
• Thorntons Cycle 100 John O’Groats to Lands End challenge
• Thorntons experiential Live Mechanical Chocolatier and Chocolate Kabin tour
• HRH the Princess Royal visits Thornton Park
• Thorntons 100 Golden Keys competition

FULL SUBMISSION

Thorntons is the nations best-loved chocolatier and celebrated its 100th birthday in 2011. Its marketing activity certainly hit a sweet spot with its customers and colleagues alike but none of it would have been possible without fantastic teamwork.

Here is a little flavour of what Team Thorntons achieved in 2011 …

Each piece of activity that was undertaken as part of Thorntons 100th birthday celebrations was strategically aligned with the business objectives outlined in the executive summary.

Team Thorntons

Teamwork, both internally and with agencies, was a key success factor, with the whole business engaged from start to finish, incorporating everything from idea creation through to bringing those ideas to life.

Initially the business nominated a team to manage all of the Centenary activities – product creation, brand awareness, PR and employee engagement. Celebrating 100 years of chocolate history with such an iconic brand would have been a challenge for any team, but all of this was managed by just four individuals, on top of their usual day jobs.

All Centenary activity that Thorntons undertook during 2011, much of which had never been done before at Thorntons, came out of this team, who become affectionately known across the business as the Centenary Dream Team.

Team Selection

This team of four may have been the main ‘working’ team on the project but the entire business wanted to get involved in such a great celebration. All head office staff, store colleagues and factory workers were asked in 2010 what they would like to see the business do to celebrate 100 years in 2011.

The Thorntons Top Three – these are the top three marketing activities that Thorntons undertook to achieve its Centenary objectives.

ONE: Thorntons breaks Guinness World Record for World’s Largest Bar of Chocolate

Cost vs ROI: £35,000 for £800,000 AVE return.

Overview: On Thorntons 100th birthday, Britain’s best loved chocolate company broke the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Bar of chocolate, weighing a massive 5,792.5kgs, the equivalent of 72,000 Thorntons Chocolate Blocks.

Idea creation: Paul Bell, a worker from Thorntons toffee department in the factory, came up with the idea after he was inspired by the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Objectives: The objective of the activity was to generate positive press coverage around Thorntons 100 year celebrations and to celebrate with colleagues in style.

Execution: From planning to execution, this activity took over 6 months. A stainless steel 4mx4m mould and 6 tonnes of chocolate was needed and a host of other equipment to make it to the Guinness World Record specification.

The whole making process took a week and was filmed and photographed, with videos and images then being seeded out to the media.

The press unveiling attracted a lot of media attention, with BBC East Midlands today doing a live broadcast from Thornton Park. Paul Bell was the main spokesperson for Thorntons and his family was even involved in the media photo call.

Results: The idea really captured the imagination of all the staff. Nearly 200 people turned up to watch the unveiling of the bar and over 50 people volunteered their time to help pour the chocolate to make up the bar.

The main objective was media coverage and this was a phenomenal success. The bar achieved over 80 pieces of national print, broadcast and online coverage with a total AVE (advertising value equivalent) of £800,000 and 177 million OTS (opportunities to see). Key highlights included TV coverage on BBC East Midlands Today, CBBC Newsround, Sky News and ITV Central. With national column inches achieved in the Daily Mirror, The Metro, Daily Record, Daily Mail online and The Guardian online to name a few.

TWO: Thorntons Cycle 100

Cost vs ROI: £17,000 for £100,000 AVE return, £16,000 raised for charity.

Overview: Five Thorntons employees embarked on a journey of a lifetime - to cycle 1,200 miles from John O’Groats to Lands End, taking in 100 Thorntons stores along the way, all in aid of the NSPCC and to celebrate Thorntons Centenary with the stores.

Idea creation: Thorntons wanted to take its Centenary celebrations to its stores so launched an employee challenge to find five members of staff to cycle the breadth of the country visiting 100 stores along the way. Head office employee Ryan Bishop led the team, as it had always been a dream of his.

Objectives:

1. To take Thorntons Centenary celebrations to Thorntons store colleagues so they could celebrate this great milestone.
2. To raise money for the NSPCC and to generate awareness and regional media coverage of Thorntons during it’s Centenary year.

Team work: Ryan asked for volunteers from around the business and ensured the final five were selected from multiple channels across the business.

Once selected, this group of five people trained for 7 months together before embarking on their 1,200 journey, which took them two weeks to complete and the team managed to visit over 100 Thorntons stores along the way.

Execution: All of the store teams supported the Cycle 100 team by holding fundraising activities in their stores on the day the team visited, each targeted with raising £100. They welcomed the team with banners, bunting and on some occasions fancy dress. The Cycle 100 team passed through Thornton Park and was welcomed by hundreds of people, and on that day over 30 people from head office actually joined in on the cycle for an 8 mile leg to the nearby Thorntons store – including Thorntons CEO and executive team.

Results: The level of engagement from stores was fantastic with teams holding a host of different activities to raise money. These included bake sales, getting local schools or groups to come down to welcome the Cycle 100 team, fancy dress, chocolate tasting and even a Scottish piper welcome for the team in Edinburgh.

The team raised a fantastic £16,000 for the NSPCC and the regional media coverage was fantastic. 40 pieces of coverage was achieved resulting in an AVE of £100,000, with 4.5 million OTS (opportunities to see).

THREE: Experience Thorntons - Come and find a golden key in Thorntons amazing Chocolate Kabin or meet Thorntons Live Mechanical Chocolatier across Britain

Cost vs ROI: £75,000 for 6.5 million pedestrian flow, £83,000 AVE return, £5,000 raised for charity.

Overview: Thorntons ran two fantastic pieces of experiential activity during its Centenary year – the Chocolate Kabin and its Live Mechanical Chocolatier tour.

The Chocolate Kabin: Come inside Thorntons Chocolate Kabin to find the Golden Key. Chocolate lovers met the jolly shop keeper, tried their hand on the chocolate lucky dip and super-duper-chocolate-scooper, before being waved off by the live mechanical chocolatier.

Five cities were visited starting with the press unveiling in London, then visiting Liverpool, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Sheffield.

Chocolate Kabin Quiz Sheets were completed with data capture, driving people into stores for a free chocolate and a ‘Free bar when you spend £4 in store” offer.

Thorntons Live Mechanical Chocolatier - brought wonder and chocolate to the streets of Britain. With any donation, the roboticlooking chocolatier (a real man!) burst into life, mixing chocolate, dancing and rewarding any donation with chocolate. 22 locations were visited across the UK, with it being unveiled in Derby and finishing the tour in Covent Garden.

Press releases & photocall were issued for each location issued to regional media and leaflets were handed out promoting a “free bar of chocolate when you spend £4 in store” to drive footfall.

Objectives:

1. To engage the British public in the Thorntons brand by celebrating our 100 years with them by making them smile.
2. To drive footfall into Thorntons store on the back of the activity.
3. To generate media coverage and WOM on the back of the activity.
4. Raise money for our charity of the year – the NSPCC.

Team work: The Centenary Team not only came up with both of these ideas but also worked on the kabin and live mechanical chocolatier in all of its locations. The team worked closely with The Ministry of Fun who designed and created the concept. It was also essential to establish relationships with the local councils and shopping centres to get permits and marketing support and of course the Thorntons store teams worked on the kabin in each location.

Results for the Chocolate Kabin: The experiential reach (pedestrian flow) of the activity was 1 million people in total (200k per venue). Total interaction (no. of people taking an activity sheet & going inside) was 1,900 per venue, spending an average of 3 minutes each inside. In total that is 9,500 people interacting with the kabin, spending a total of 475 hours engaged in the brand.

The activity proved to be a successful footfall driver with 4,000 people completing the activity sheets and going in store to claim a free chocolate. 37% of which went on to make a purchase (usual uptake 25% maximium).

The kabin had a fantastic impact on store performance with the London store +80% and Liverpool + 23% both vs target, then Nottingham +30.8%, Edinburgh +49.6% and Sheffield was + 24.1% vs the rest of the estate on the day of activity.

National coverage was achieved from the launch in Metro Online, People Online, The Mirror online & You Tube, plus regional coverage. Advertising value equivalent of £60,000

£1,500 was raised for the NSPCC.

Results for the Live Mechanical Chocolatier: This activity brought a smile to over 5.5 million people who saw the chocolatier in total across the UK, reminding people that Thorntons is a great British brand with 100 years of expertise. (based on average town footfall of 25,000 per location, conservative estimate as the larger city locations had footfall of over 100,000 people per day)

Total net sales for the 22 participating stores on the activity days vs total net sales for those stores LY was -1%. The estate was trending at an average of - 5.9% during this period, therefore the activity shifted performance by +4.9% on the days the mechanical chocolatier was on location.

Over £3,500 was raised for the NSPCC.

40,000 leaflets were distributed across 22 locations, with a 6% redemption rate. The average ATV of customers redeeming the leaflet was £6, generating over £14,000 in net sales. 15 pieces of coverage were achieved (Advertising value equivalent of £22,500), plus local marketing coverage through the shopping centres and the mechanical chocolatier was heavily promoted on Thorntons social networks.

The best of the rest …
Thorntons Centenary year was also made up of many other exciting activities including:

The visit of HRH the Princess Royal to Thornton Park - HRH unveiled a plaque to commemorate and celebrate Thorntons 100th birthday. HRH also took part in a factory tour and enjoyed a chocolate tasting with Thorntons chocolatiers. The objective of the visit was to raise morale amongst all Thorntons employees, celebrating the Centenary with them. For any Royal visit there are so many factors to consider and protocol to follow, so the Centenary team worked tirelessly with the Derbyshire Lieutenancy Office and HRH’s safety protection officers to ensure everything ran smoothly on the day.

The entire business was excited by the royal visit an d Thorntons’ longest serving members of staff were chosen to meet HRH in the line ups and also the longest serving employee who has been with the company 40 years, presented HRH with a limited edition £100 box of chocolates.

All head office staff gathered to welcome HRH at Thornton’s gates and on the factory tour HRH was introduced to many members of staff, who all said it was one of the highlights of their careers meeting her.

ITV central filmed the visit and local media coverage from the Derbyshire region was also achieved.

Thorntons 100 Golden Keys - 100 Golden Keys were hidden in Thorntons Chocolate Blocks. The 100 lucky people to find them would win a behind-the-scenes tour of Thorntons chocolate factory and a masterclass with Thorntons Chocolatiers during Chocolate Week. The objectives were around engaging people in store, promoting the fun side of the brand and to generate exciting content for social media channels.

It required cross-functional working with the factory team and chocolatiers to ensure the 200 people (100 winners plus a guest each) who visited Thornton Park had a fantastic day to remember. A team of 25 employees worked together to make the day a huge success. The video content and photographers of the winners day was very well received on Facebook with many likes and comments. Over 20 pieces of media coverage was also achieved in regional newspapers and also in The Sun, Bliss magazine and Ideal Home magazine.

Overall Systems of measurement and reporting

The overall success of Thorntons Centenary year from a marketing perspective can be measured in various ways. Firstly, the media coverage achieved over the course of the year was in excess of £1.5 million AVE, which is more than 15 times ROI to PR spend.

The experiential activity can be measured by pedestrian flow, which indicates that over 6.5 million people were exposed to the Thorntons brand through these activities. It can also be measured in terms of store performance and redemption rates of marketing material. These metrics were particularly impressive for the Chocolate Kabin, with over half the people who went inside the kabin then going into store and 37% of those then going on to purchase.

Thorntons supported the NSPCC for its Centenary year all activities combined raised over £60,000, a fantastic achievement.

Finally, the highlight of Thorntons 100th year celebrations was the teamwork that went into making it such a huge success. This entire project wouldn’t have been possible without the work of the in-house Centenary team. However, on top of this Thorntons used the marketing activities around its 100th birthday to bring together the entire business, involving all employees, many suppliers and agencies in its celebrations, and now everyone can look forward to next 100 years.

To book your table for this year's awards or to find out how to enter the Awards for Excellence 2014 visit: http://www.marketingsocietyawards.com/how-to-enter