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Ricola Yodel Box

The Project Deliverables

Experiential Marketing, Sampling, Customer Engagement, Product Trial, Social Media Marketing, generating more Followers Fans and Likes

Ricola Box

Ricola's Swiss heritage is an essential ingredient in their global success. To reinforce their international positioning and unique product identity, the sweet manufacturer approached Noise with an idea for the launch of an international promotional campaign that would take the Ricola brand to consumers all over the world – and take consumers all the way back to the brands roots - Switzerland.

The ambitious campaign centred around a touring 'Yodel Box' featuring Walter, a friendly Swiss yodeller, who would invite consumers to 'yodel themselves to Switzerland'. The goal was to reach new customers across Europe and worldwide and to promote Ricola sugar-free sweets as an authentic, relevant product for the health-conscious consumer.

We were entrusted with taking the campaign off the drawing board and running the first Yodel Box event in the world here in the UK. We laid the groundwork, ironing out glitches and creating a smooth-running process for the activity in London, so that it could be rolled out again and again in other countries. 

It was a challenging brief with many logistical hurdles to overcome, but we really enjoyed working with Ricola again. And the results speak volumes - literally!

 

Location, location

Ricola's Yodel Box is an interactive video booth which invites consumers to 'yodel themselves to Switzerland' by singing the Ricola jingle. The machine captures video content of each yodel and uploads it to a dedicated site (ricola-yodel.com) where members of the public can view the videos and vote for their favourite. The yodeller with the most votes wins a trip to Switzerland.

We knew that to get maximum impact in a short space of time we would need to run the activity in a location that had high footfall and good visibility for PR. Noise secured a three-day position on the main concourse at Victoria Station, London - an ideal location right in the heart of the capital, with a daily footfall of 350,000 commuters, many of whom are likely to fit Ricola's target consumer base.

Drawing The Crowds

The Noise team project managed the production of the activity from start to finish. We set up a bold, bright stand to showcase the Ricola brand and recruited an energetic, cheerful team to run the activity and distribute samples. We also handled the delivery of the yodel box from Switzerland to London and its successful installation in the station.

The stand and our dedicated team were enormously successful in attracting the attention of the crowds of commuters and tourists flooding through the station. Over 300 people tried their hand at yodelling and over 60,000 Ricola sugar free sweets were sampled. The stand was buzzing for the full three days with people talking to the team, sampling sweets, taking selfies and of course yodelling!

Once again your energy, enthusiasm and professionalism helped to create a hugely successful event that everyone involved should be proud of. Thank you for your ongoing commitment to the Ricola brand.

A touch of London glamour

We commissioned actress and musical star Michelle Collins to join the team for the first day of yodelling. This drew big crowds to the Yodel Box and generated valuable interactions on social media. It also helped to secure listings on six of London's leading 'what's on' guides, with a combined total of over 11 million unique visits per month. Photographs of Michelle featuring Ricola branding appeared online 18 times and the story was covered by the Sun online, which receives 54.8 million views per month.

A touch of London glamour
Ricola Michelle Collins
Michelle Collins and Ricola
Selfies and sharing

Selfies and sharing

Social media was a critical, and highly successful, part of the campaign. The official launch of the Yodel Box was live streamed on Facebook Live, receiving 30,000 views in the first three days and competition entrants were encouraged to share pictures using the #Ricolala. To boost the social potential of the event, Noise created some fun Ricola-branded photo frames and selfie sticks to encourage people to capture and share their visit to the stand on social media.

Making every interaction count

Noise are always looking for ways to get maximum value from every activity we run for our clients, and that means paying careful attention to the details. We trained our team of staff to deliver key messages about Ricola's products throughout, ensuring that every interaction we had with members of the public over three days were high quality and on-message. We knew that many of the individuals passing through the station would be London professionals, so we tapped in to the capital's appetite for healthy products by emphasising Ricola sweets' delicious sugar-free recipe and vitamin content. We also recorded valuable customer feedback on Ricola products that can be used in future campaigns.

Ricola Team
Ricola interaction
Ricola Talk
Ricola Trial

Results

The Victoria event was an ideal launch for Ricola's global campaign – a high-energy, shareable and popular activity that provided many opportunities for quality interactions with potential consumers. It was exciting to be part of the early stages of the project and to play a key part in turning Ricola's idea in to a reality. We drew on our substantial experience in managing live events and our knowledge of the Ricola brand to make sure that every practical detail was taken care of, from station photography permits and electrical checks, down to the last branded selfie stick. And did we yodel? You'll have to visit the website to find out: ricola-yodel.com.

Thanks again for the great teamwork on the Ricola Yodel Box. It was really inspiring and great working together

Sugar-free success for Ricola

The Project Deliverables

Experiential Marketing, Sampling, Customer Engagement, Product Trial, Social Media Marketing, generating more Followers Fans and Likes

Ricola Sugar Swap

2016 began with a media storm over the sugar tax, a mounting awareness of the health impacts of high sugar diets and the usual annual rush to start the New Year with a health kick. For Ricola, a Swiss sweet manufacturer who have been making mouth-wateringly tasty sugar-free sweets for over 20 years, the national backlash against sugar presented an unmissable marketing opportunity. Naturally we helped them to make the most of it.

Ricola wanted to boost their brand profile in the UK and raise awareness of their sugar free products. Noise developed a promotional campaign that delivered on these goals through a combination of a live sampling event, social media activity and a nationwide press campaign. It was captioned as the 'Ricola Sugar Swap'.

Standing out in the crowd

The sampling experience was planned, to tap in to consumers' New Year's healthy eating resolutions. For two days our enthusiastic team invited shoppers in the Arndale Centre, Manchester, to swap their sugary snacks for a free packet of Ricola sugar free sweets. To attract the attention of shoppers in one of the UK's busiest shopping centres Noise knew that the sampling had to be supported by an eye-catching, branded stand and an energetic team of staff.

We have worked with Ricola on sampling events for many years, and we know the brand inside out. We drew on this experience to design a stand that featured playful giant versions of the company's distinctive square packets and highlighted Ricola's health credentials with imagery of alpine landscapes and an intrepid climbing gardener.

Ricola Stand
Ricola Sugar Swap Area
Ricola Boxes

Adding value with social media

As well as giving out single sweet samples, we offered shoppers the chance to receive a full pack of Ricola sugar free sweets absolutely free in return for disposing of their own sugary snacks.

This simple piece of participation created opportunities for more interaction and a more memorable engagement between shoppers, our team and the Ricola brand. Noise also promoted #ricolasugarswap on Twitter and encouraged shoppers to 'tweet for a sweet' and share their experience of the sugar swap in return for a free sample. The hashtag was used in over 150 posts over the 2 day campaign, resulting in over 70,000 impressions.

A taste of consumer attitudes

To add even more value to Ricola's campaign, Noise encouraged the sampling team to talk to customers about their sugar habits and their attitudes to recent health stories. We also looked for comments and reactions to the campaign on social media. This information gathering provided Ricola with valuable insight into consumer perceptions of their products and Noise will be able to draw on this insight to enhance future campaigns.

Ricola

Ricola Swap

Ricola Stand

Sweet success

Over the course of the two-day event we gave away 3,500 packets of Ricola's sugar free products and 4,000 individual sweets. We also distributed over 2,000 leaflets that included a 50p MONP (money off next purchase) coupon to spend on a Ricola product and secured 89 pieces of coverage in UK media, broadening the impact of the campaign still further.

The Ricola Sugar Swap was a fun campaign to produce a nimble, imaginative response to a media moment, that enabled Ricola to capitalise on a consumer trend and boost the profile of an existing product range. We look forward to working on the next challenge with the Ricola team.

Ricola Sampling

The Project Deliverables

Experiential Marketing, Sampling, Customer Engagement, Product Trial.

Swiss Tourist board logo

Ricola Switzerland

Sampling at Leading Travel Industry Event

Ricola is one of the most innovative manufacturers of herbal sweets in the world. As well as being a successful global brand, Ricola is a genuine Swiss family-run company. It has its headquarters in Laufen, near Basel, Switzerland and is proud to rank among the top 20 Swiss brands. When an exciting opportunity came up to collaborate with Switzerland Tourism on an exhibition at the World Travel Market Show, Ricola jumped at the chance to show off their country of origin and their unique products to the world.

The Noise team have a long relationship with Ricola so when they asked us to manage the World Travel Market Show promotion we understood exactly what the collaboration would mean to them. The World Travel Market Show is the most highly regarded global exhibition of its kind. Over 50,000 visitors stream through the doors of London Dockland’s ExCel Centre each year to explore the very best destinations, brands and products that the travel industry has to offer. The goal of the promotion was to market the Ricola brand to an international audience while supporting the Switzerland Tourism team in presenting the best of Swiss hospitality to the world.

A taste of Switzerland

To attract visitors in this busy arena Noise organised free sampling of Ricola products. We recruited, trained and managed a team of staff to hand out free samples to visitors approaching the stand. Over the whole three day event, the supply of sweets never faltered and neither did the team’s smiles. They welcomed thousands of customers to the Switzerland stand, acting as friendly ambassadors for the country and the Ricola brand.

Memorable marketing

Sampling is only a good investment if it is accompanied by a memorable experience that ensures people remember the brand as well as the freebie.

To maximise the marketing opportunity for Ricola, Noise arranged formal branded uniforms for the sampling team. They also trained the staff to communicate central marketing messages during their interactions with visitors by repeating key phrases such as: "sugar free"," tooth friendly", "only 6 calories" and emphasising the unique ingredients “containing 13 Swiss Herbs” on every occasion.

The result was a highly successful brand promotion activity for Ricola and a seamless collaboration with an important partner.

Noise Agency has continued to deliver this activity at all Swiss Tourist Board Events ever since!

Ricola Sampling Activity

Ricola Sampling Activity

Ricola Promotion

Another successful World Travel Market has passed, and we are already looking forward to attending in the future

The collaboration with Ricola was fantastic, we had lots of positive feedback from our stand visitors and the team continued handing out Ricola with a big smiling and energy throughout!

Thank you very much for your support.

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