The holiday season is also cold-and-flu season, which, for Swiss cough drop and breath mint maker Ricola, means increased attention to its products.
This cough-and-cold season, Ricola ran shoppable influencer marketing campaigns across Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat to better attract and reach younger generations of customers.
Influencer marketing, which banks on people’s trust of word-of-mouth recommendations, can be highly effective.
Seventy-two percent of Gen Z and millennial consumers follow influencers, and 50% of millennials trust the influencers they follow for product suggestions, according to a 2019 Morning Consult report.
Ricola works with a strong stable of macro- and micro-influencers, but it needed a way to effectively measure their performance. That’s why the brand kicked off a partnership with ecommerce advertising startup MikMak in Q4 of last year. For its influencer campaigns, Ricola used MikMak to pinpoint its most successful, engaging influencers and the platforms on which they performed best.
“Data doesn’t lie,” said Tara Bischoff, associate brand manager at Ricola. “Whether we’re doing an influencer program or advertising campaign, I want to be able to tell the whole story to our organization about what communication is working and what’s driving people to purchase.”
Though MikMak can’t capture 100% of consumer activity, CPG brands like Ricola are often “flying blind” because they don’t own the customer relationship, said MikMak CEO and founder Rachel Tipograph.
For instance, Ricola can now see when customers click on a link in an influencer’s Instagram post and make a purchase. In many cases, MikMak can also report whether the transaction was pure ecommerce or buy online, pick up in store.
MikMak can also drill down into other details, including what platform an influencer was on, whether a shopper clicked through to a retailer and which is their preferred retailer, said Kayla Darcey, a principal account manager at MikMak.
MikMak’s software integrates with most major media channels, including Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, CTV, paid search, programmatic, email and a brand’s own websites. When customers tap, swipe or click on shoppable media, they’re directed to a page run (behind the scenes) by MikMak, where they can choose to check out with retailers such as Amazon, Target and Walmart.
MikMak “ingests” retailer, inventory and sales data as well as first-party consumer data, such as “basket-level data” about the items shoppers put in their baskets, behavioral data from how customers interact with sites and platforms around the internet, and demographic and psychographic data MikMak pulls in through its partnership with data platform LiveRamp, according to Tipograph.
From click to cart
Although Ricola is traditionally an over-the-counter brand, it has started to “do a lot more on the digital side,” said Barshan Quadry, Ricola’s sales strategy manager for ecommerce and alternative channels in North America.
Influencer marketing is one example of Ricola’s push into digital.
In its latest influencer campaign, the brand asked influencers to append a MikMak tracking link to their call to action. The call to action varied depended on the platform, such as a link in the bio or swipe up to click.
For TikTok, influencer videos populated in people’s For You feeds as they scrolled through, which they could click on to check out. By looking at the MikMak dashboard, Ricola could see in real time the conversion rates of different influencers.
Ricola learned that TikTok was the brand’s best-performing channel. Target was the strongest converting retailer, with 55% of consumers checking out through the retailer. And travel creator Jackie Krawiecki, who posts about road trips, hikes and adventures abroad, was the top-performing influencer, with a purchase intent rate 1.6 times higher than the brand average.
“One out of every two people bought [through Jackie],” Tipograph said.
With Ricola’s previous business intelligence partner, the brand ran into issues with broken links and customizing buy links for its influencer program, making it difficult to track progress.
MikMak’s platform allows Ricola to have “a lot more visibility into how shoppers are purchasing our products, where they’re going to purchase and which items are their favorites,” Bischoff said. “Even if they haven’t completed the purchase yet, we can understand the customer journey a little bit better.”
Popularity plays pay
Influencer marketing is only one piece of Ricola’s marketing mix, which spans everything from traditional TV ad spots to out-of-home advertising to retail media networks to in-store shopper marketing efforts.
And though cold season is its bread and butter, the brand is trying to tap in to more everyday opportunities.
The company wants customers to reach for Ricola not only when they’re sick but as a go-to for throat care.
For instance, customers suffering from allergies may have a scratchy throat – or podcasters, teachers and those who spend much of their days talking may want to protect their voices.
Ricola runs campaigns throughout the year that center on these other uses for its products.
But influencers are becoming a significant part of the brand’s strategy, regardless of the time of year or the specific message Ricola is trying to build buzz around.
“We know this is a space where some of these younger consumers who we want to reach and who are aware of our products are going,” Bischoff said. “How do we connect with them in a fun way that still drives the message of our product and stays true to the integrity of our brand?”
