A new cold coffee product for Nescafé in the UK ran a brand lift study to discover the most effective targeting strategy and found that its ads in Instagram Stories had achieved a 6-point lift in awareness.
Case study summary
The challange
Nescafé Azera Nitro aims to provide a coffee experience that combines a smooth taste and a unique texture, best served chilled. The brand strives to bring innovation to a crowded marketplace of cold and ready-to-drink coffees in the UK.
The brand wanted to use Instagram and Facebook’s large audience to quickly achieve strong unaided ad recall and brand awareness about the launch of its new cold coffee product. Nescafé Azera also knew that Facebook measurement solutions could help it understand the most successful campaign tactics.
The solution
Facebook and Instagram were the key platforms in the campaign, offering precise targeting along with massive reach. Nescafé Azera joined up with Facebook Creative Shop and performance agency Zenith UK to develop creative assets for both platforms. The team repurposed some video assets to fit Facebook News Feed and another set of assets were created from scratch to fit the popular Instagram Stories format. Zenith UK targeted the ads to men and women age 18 and over.
Zenith UK also ran a multi-cell brand lift study to understand the impact of Stories on brand metrics. For this study, one audience saw ads with a heavier share of impressions on Instagram Stories, whilst the other was exposed to ads through automated placements distributed between Facebook News Feed and Instagram Stories. All other variables remained constant throughout the study, including objective, placements and campaign duration.
The results
The multi-cell brand lift study revealed that while weighting ad delivery more heavily to Stories may reach a smaller audience compared to delivering ads by automatic placements, Stories can effectively drive greater brand impact. Measured between July 2–August 31, 2018, the ads in Stories resulted in:
Ksenia Kassoni, Media Manager, Social and search lead at Nescafé, said: "Instagram Stories took off last year and ads in Stories seemed like a great opportunity for the brand. However, as with every new placement, we wanted to know exactly what the value ads in Stories would bring and what role the new format will be playing in the overall media plan should the test be successful."
