⏳ 4 minute read.
Innocent Drinks recently announced the launch of a Heinz baked beans smoothie 🤮. They shared the ‘shocking news’ on their social media channels, which turned out to be a clever marketing tool to launch their actual breakfast smoothie.
Who?
Innocent Drinks is a company that produces smoothies and juice sold in supermarkets, coffee shops and various other outlets. The company sells more than two million smoothies per week. Innocent is over 90% owned by The Coca-Cola Company.
In this article, you will learn:
- How social media users reacted to the baked beans smoothie ‘fake news’.
- How they announced the actual product, once they had everyone’s attention from bean-gate.
- How the baked beans smoothie was just a clever marketing ploy to create a buzz on social media, ready for the launch of the real product.
Innocent Drinks posted this on Friday morning:
8:30am
- The announcement across its channels got a mixed reaction, the majority – confused, baffled and sickened.
- The post created a big buzz across social media, with users left to wonder throughout the day and over the weekend, whether Innocent Drinks were serious.
- They kept up the act. The post below, published on Saturday, helped strengthen the weird rumour:
- It seems like Innocent Drinks had an engagement plan ready for when people expressed their shock, disgust and cheekiness.
- They replied back to most of the reactions in a quick-witted, blunt and sarcastic manner – as if people were ‘crazy’ to doubt them.
Innocent Drinks then posted this on Friday afternoon:
- After getting lots of comments throughout the day, Innocent posted the below on Friday afternoon to strengthen the rumours. Nice way to add fuel to the fire.
- Even Heinz got in on the action, see below.
The Monday reveal:
What Innocent Drinks were actually launching:
- Innocent Drinks posted the below ‘disclaimer’ on Monday morning to reveal what they were actually launching – their ‘Up & Oat’ breakfast smoothie.
- They really did play ‘innocent,’ throughout the whole reveal.
- They edited their original image in an obvious and sloppy way to add to humour of: “it wasn’t us!”
Below shows the original post, split between text and image:
- In a ‘whilst we’ve got your attention’ style on this Monday post above, Innocent told its social media users that they were actually launching the ‘Up & Oat’ smoothie (see below).
- Innocent continued to deny its involvement with the original baked beans post.
- Their tone of voice throughout the whole stunt was funny, casual and quick-witted – perfectly matching its target demographic.
The result
- The weekend stunt got thousands of likes, comments and reactions across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
- This was achieved by posting off-the-cuff organic content, stepping away for the weekend and then stepping back to post the ‘ta-da’ new product launch content.
This is a clear example of a brand creating controversy in a light, witty but disturbing way, whilst staying true to their tone of voice. Excellent example of a brand just having fun with a product launch.
@DigitalVinGill 