Britons have been chomping at the bit for the return of the Great British Bake Off and the opening episode garnered almost 10 million viewers. The popular cookery programme began six years ago and has gradually gripped budding bakers across the country. With the nation’s love of baking showing no signs of waning, supermarkets have cottoned on and are smartly aligning themselves to GBBO wherever they can.
And it’s working. Just look at the figures: in August last year Waitrose reported a 25% rise in sales of processed glacé cherries after an episode in which contestants competed to make their own version of co-judge Mary Berry’s cherry cake. Waitrose also reported a 22% increase in the sale of cake tins and a 14% rise in piping bags, confirming that the show had contributed to strong sales.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s claim that the brand alignment is paying off for them too, with their bakery goods and kitchen equipment online sales peaking when the GBBO airs. They have even gone as far as rebranding some of their baking products around the show, such as the Great British Bake Off mixing bowl.
The content created by these stores is supporting their ability to tap into GBBO’s halo effect and maximise its commercial potential. For example, in September 2014 Morrisons magazine incorporated a baking masterclass special feature to coincide with the GBBO. Ensuring their customers could buy products directly from the online magazine as well as being able to tweet and share their articles and recipes, they reached a huge number of engaged consumers with an appetite to buy.
Equally, the hashtag GBBO provides supermarket Twitter accounts with a brilliant way to interact with a live audience, whilst promoting their online content.
However, some are doing it better than others.
During this season’s first episode Waitrose sent out six different tweets to its 206k followers, the most shared being a link to an online recipe for Black Forest fudge bites, constructed from Waitrose only products.
Asda may have only tweeted once during the show, however the tweet did include a link back to a selection of their own ‘fab #showstoppers’ recipes, driving traffic to their site and engaging their customers.
Tesco also tweeted using the GBBO hashtag, sharing top baking tips in the form of a 140 word Tweet. However with no link back to additional articles or recipes, they missed the opportunity to use their own content in conjunction with these tweets to bolster sales and drive website traffic.
Popular themes such as GBBO provide innovative opportunities for businesses of any size who are looking to make the most of their content. The ones who will profit most from those opportunities however, are those who use content in a smart and authentic way to be a part of the conversation and provide exactly what their customers are looking for, in context and at the right time.
By Ed Bussey, founder and CEO of Quill.
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