Advertising Case Study

Burts Bees
Company Background Burts Bees is a leading manufacturer of earthrespective, natural personal care products. The company was born in Maine more than 25 years ago as the brainchild of a beekeeper and an artist who fled city life for something more wholesome. Today, the company provides more than 150 natural personal care products for use from head to toe. The companys business model and guiding vision is a dedication to The Greater Good, a unique, triple-bottom-line approach that honors natural well-being, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. Burts Bees has approximately 400 employees. Its products are available in the United States and nearly 30 markets worldwide, as well as on its website www.burtsbees.com. Objective In February 2009, Burts Bees created its U.S. Facebook page. As a company that was built on word of mouth more than 25 years ago, Facebook allows the brand to continue to develop its consumer relationships in the digital age. Our heritage is built around consumers sharing the brand and our products with each other, says Mariah Kulp, Burts Bees Director of Marketing Communications. With Facebook, they have a place to gather online. Burts Bees has worked to build an online environment to encourage sharing among fans and we are fortunate to have passionate and active consumers.

Facebook Executive Summary

Client:

facebook.com/burtsbees Objective: Raise awareness of a new Tinted Lip Balm and continue the engagement the company had been seeing on Facebook. Solution: A Facebook Reach Block including Like and Video Ads for broad awareness, followed by a weeklong campaign of Sponsored Stories. Key Lessons: Reach Block can generate broad awareness, as brands can reach 100 percent of their target audiences on Facebook over a 24hour period. Following a Reach Block with Sponsored Stories can lead to higher engagement as stories increase distribution of the interactions with the brand generated by the initial blast. Creating experiences on Facebook that encourage fans to share content and become part of the campaign can be especially effective.

The higher engagement rates that Burts Bees saw with its Sponsored Stories speak to the word-of-mouth appeal of the brand and the beauty category in general. If people see that their friends like the brand and that their friends are endorsing it, then they have a much higher likelihood to engage.
Mariah Kulp Burts Bees Director of Marketing Communications

Advertising Case Study

In June 2011, Burts Bees launched the Lips Go Bloom campaign on Facebook in timing with the launch of a new product, Tinted Lip Balms. Burts Bees wanted to meet two objectives with its Lips Go Bloom online campaign. First, it wanted to raise awareness of the new product line, a twist on Burts Bees classic balm made with shea butter and rare botanical waxes available in six blossom-inspired shades. A second objective was to continue the engagement the brand had seen on Facebook months prior. We wanted to keep up the engagement momentum and the excitement that weve seen with the brand on Facebook from our other initiatives, says Melissa Sowry, Burts Bees Content and Social Media Manager. Approach To help launch the Tinted Lip Balm collection, the brand approached its Facebook campaign with a similar approach to previous campaigns: create content thats interactive, engaging and fun. The brand created a folksy 90-second Tinted Lip Balm Animated Short that started with the product itself. Every image, line and color in the illustrated-style video was drawn with the actual Tinted Lip Balm. For Facebook, Burts Bees built an application on its page designed to encourage sharing a bloom in one of six shades of Tinted Lip Balm: Red Dahlia, Rose, Pink Blossom, Hibiscus, Tiger Lily or Honeysuckle. The app enables fans to send a message to a Facebook friend along with a bloom describing why that friend is a natural beauty. The objective of the campaign was to create awareness of the new Tinted Lip Balms, but in a way that could generate delight around the brand and this new product, says Melissa. The video is an example of that because it has fun with the product in a typical Burts Bees voice. We also wanted fans to engage and share with us on Facebook, and so we came up with the idea of allowing a fan to share a nice message about why she believes one of her friends is a natural beauty in her eyes. To generate broad awareness among its key audience, Burts Bees on June 9, 2011 ran a Reach Block, a media buy on premium locations that enables an advertiser to reach 100 percent of its target audience on Facebook over a 24-hour period. As part of the Reach Block, the brand featured Like Ads and Video Like Ads driving to the Lips Go Bloom Facebook tab and the Tinted Lip Balm Animated Short. Other Like Ads featuring the brands distinctive bee icon and logo were created to build general brand awareness. Targeting for the Reach Block was broadU.S. women ages 18 and overto reflect the brands large existing and potential customer base. Burts Bees followed up the Reach Block with a weeklong campaign of Sponsored Stories, which increase the visibility of peoples authentic interactions with brands on Facebook by surfacing them on the right column of pages. When someone liked the Burts Bees page, the action

Advertising Case Study

created a Like Sponsored Story that was displayed to that persons friends. Were pleased with the results of the Sponsored Stories campaign following the Reach Block as it allowed us to sustain organic fan growth beyond the Reach Block period, says Mariah. Results More than 200,000 new Likes from the Reach Block and combined Sponsored Stories. As of late mid-August 2011, Burts Bees has more than 675,000 fans 23,000 plays of the Tinted Lip Balm Animated Short 2.1 million organic impressions generated during the media flights

Higher engagement rate through Sponsored Stories The Burts Bees Lips Go Bloom Facebook tab had more than 82,000 views over the course of the campaign

The short-term metrics that we were trying to hit with this campaign have succeeded, says Mariah. Now we need to look at how were able to maintain and engage that increase in fans over the course of the next six months to a year. Mariah adds, The higher engagement rates that Burts Bees saw with its Sponsored Stories speak to the wordof-mouth appeal of the brand and the beauty category in general. If people see that their friends like the brand and that their friends are endorsing it, then they have a much higher likelihood to engage.