On their family farm in Aberdeenshire, the fifth generation of the Mackie’s family produces real dairy ice cream and chocolate using renewable energy. Their ice cream is Scotland’s favourite, and their much-loved Traditional flavour is available in all major retailers across the UK.
In the summer of 2020, with foundational brand strategy work already complete, Mackie’s of Scotland asked us to devise a campaign that would showcase the work we had already done on positioning and bring it to life in their peak period: summer. The core brand articulation devised for Mackie’s is ‘Making Simple Delicious’ and this was the catalyst for all that we did when creating ‘A Summer of Simple Pleasures’ and helped us stay true to Mackie’s brand’s identity.
You can read more about our Mackie’s Brand Refresh here, and all the steps we took to ensure a seamless, yet meaningful transition into their new identity, whilst remaining true to Mackie’s past brand identity.
The campaign ‘A Summer of Simple Pleasures’ focused on the simplicity of their real dairy ice cream and brought it into the context of the simple pleasures we all enjoy in our own lives.
The campaign brief
To attract new shoppers across the UK to Mackie’s and communicate a distinctive brand proposition that resonates with the discerning shopper and differentiates Mackie’s from its competitors. Particularly south of the Scottish border where their market penetration was not as strong as on their home turf.
Our aims
1. Increase brand awareness
Ensuring we reach our audience in the numbers we need so that it makes a difference
2. Create engagement
Connecting with our audience and engage them with a distinctive and memorable campaign
3. Build foundations
Developing an idea that brings to life our new brand idea, is suitable for amplification in all mediums and builds content for the brand.
Mackie’s ‘Summer of Simple Pleasures’
The campaign idea we landed on: ‘Mackie’s Summer of Simple Pleasures’ was centred around the idea of the simple things in life being the best! Just like Mackie’s no fuss ice cream, made simply delicious just with fresh milk and cream, there are lots of other simple pleasures in our lives that give us a little lift.
This sentiment was felt more strongly than ever in the summer of 2020 as we all navigated a period of uncertainty during the pandemic. Being locked down at home, the simple pleasures in our lives became the things we held onto for sanity. Things like reading a good book, baking, or getting out for those all-important, government-permitted moments of fresh air on your bike.
Mackie’s first media campaign
As we were seeking both an increase brand awareness as well as engagement, we split the campaign into two halves. We were excited to help Mackie’s navigate their first paid media campaign across programmatic and Facebook which focused mostly on brand awareness activity and gorgeous shots of their ice cream in action.
The second part of the campaign was a more promotional element and centred around competitions, hosted on microsite, which gave entrants the chance to win a new ‘simple pleasure’ every week for 10 weeks. Prizes included flowers, a standing mixer, a pizza oven, a hammock, and of course plenty of ice cream themed prizes. The media campaign was split across 8 weeks with 7 weeks of brand awareness and 1 week centred around promotional participation.
We further supported the campaign with Influencer marketing, we put together a hamper of ‘simple pleasure’ themed goodies and sent them two each: one to enjoy and one to give away to their followers.
Final thoughts
The campaign delivered 77% more reach than intended, and over 70,000 people entered in the promotional activity. Additionally, website traffic exceeded targets with 139.5% more web visits than initially intended, whilst social media accounts gained 3,700 new followers.
Mackie’s first foray into paid digital advertising was a success and we got immediately stuck into thinking about how we could make 2021 even bigger and better.
If you are looking to make an impact with your next campaign, we would love to help. Here at Curzon Marketing, we offer a solution and provide expert marketing so your business can keep on growing.
Get in touch to discuss an effective campaign for your business.