Krispy Kreme 77th Birthday Embraces Word of Mouth Marketing

Krispy Kreme’s 77th Birthday- Celebrate the Original

Today is the 77th Birthday of Krispy Kreme, and if you live near one you could pick up a dozen doughnuts for just 77 cents. Yes you just heard me right, for not even a buck. As great as that news is, I wanted to give them some props for the 77th birthday page.

They are a brand that is relying less on paid ad embracing word of mouth/social media. They are using user generated content to show their product and celebrate the birthday. The main part of the image is a doughnut with little twitter, instagram and Facebook. Each of the Icons link to posts featuring Krispy Kreme user generated images. The image here shows a few images but once the page loads its completely full. This is a great way to share user generated content and to get people involved in spreading the word.

How do they do this? Krispy Kreme has developed the page so it allows them to pull out images with a hash tag. As they say “Tell us about the first time you discovered the joy of Krispy Kreme with #KKOriginalMoment or show us how you’re a true #KKOriginal every day.” So just use any social network (as long as the post is public) and you could see it on the Krispy Kreme site.

Why would a company do this? Well as reported in AdAge in March, they are relying on word of mouth. Social seems to be working very well for them. In the last few years they over reached by opening too many stores and selling in Grocery/Connivence stores. This has helped them reverse the downward slide the company was facing. It has allowed them to grow revenue and increase stores in a controlled growth.

This shows the power of social media. The company had setbacks but have a product people love and are letting those people be their brand advocates. They then intern spread the word of the doughnuts via social media to their friends and it grows from there! Classic Word of Mouth Marketing.

Tim is the founder of Element33. A social media agency specializing in education, management and strategy for small businesses. He comes from a traditional marketing agency but has embraced all things digital. He considers himself a marketing nerd and believes that all marketing is tied together. This means no matter what silo you are in, social, email, seach, etc, changes in one will affect the other!

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