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Challenge

Times are changing for crisp consumption. With people turning to different snacks for nights in and multiple screens in the house, families are less likely to come together to watch the same programme over a sharing bag.

To combat this, Walkers is sponsoring ITV’s Saturday nights in 2018. This created two challenges. Firstly, Walkers sponsor the entire evening, not an individual show such as The X Factor or I’m a Celebrity, so we had to integrate with the programmes, not just the ad breaks. And when families do watch TV together, they disappear into their own world on their phones during the ad breaks. How could we use these digital distractions to bring everyone together?

Solution

Walkers is running Win Live!, a weekly prize draw in a bid to become the go-to sharing snack for Saturday nights. Entrants buy a pack to get a unique entry code, but we knew a traditional ‘SMS the code to enter’ mechanic wouldn’t stand up to the allure of Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.

Rather than compete with them, we put Walkers front and centre on Facebook Messenger, where consumers enter the competition via a chatbot. After taking entry details, the chatbot entertains people for the rest of the ad break with a gameshow-style quiz, prompting families to discuss the answers with each other, creating a shared family moment. Questions are tailored to that evening’s TV and will evolve throughout the year to complement the big shows, helping to make Saturday nights a time to enjoy together again.

Activity

The competition is promoted through on-pack advertising. Consumers simply scan the Facebook code with the Messenger app to open the entry chatbot. Ad spots throughout the evening encourage consumers to locate the code on their crisp packet and Facebook advertising supports the same message, putting the chatbot one click away.

Winners are contacted via the chatbot and email, with giveaways enticing them to try new flavours and have another go next week. To make the prize draw a bigger family moment, in the final ad spot of the evening, brand ambassador Gary Lineker opens an envelope to reveal the winner’s name, which has been added in real time.

Result

We brought families back together again with a chatbot that got them actually chatting.

Almost a third of of chatbot users entered the competition twice or more and 48% of users adopted Chatbot as their preferred entry route – beating KPI target by a whopping 60%.

On top of all this, it was the first ever Facebook competition to connect digital entries to a live TV draw. And it’s now something we’re considering across a range of PepsiCo brands.