Challenge

Longtime PriceWeber client, The Hershey Company, enlisted PriceWeber to help provide public relations support to drive store traffic by garnering exposure for its Melted Hot Chocolate at the Hershey’s Chocolate World flagship retail store in Times Square. The product wasn’t new, but they were looking for a way to help raise awareness among local influencers and media to drive traffic. PriceWeber stepped in to come up with a timely activation for this product.

Key Objectives:

• Drive foot traffic to Hershey’s Chocolate World Times Square and increase Melted Hot Chocolate sales at that location.
• Garner earned media coverage of the Hershey’s Melted Hot Chocolate product among NYC-based media and influencers.

Solution

Conceptualize an on-site event for local media, influencers and bloggers at Hershey’s Chocolate World Times Square to engage relevant confectionary media VIPs that would be interested in covering the Melted Hot Chocolate product. Leverage the existing National Hot Chocolate Day on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020 to encourage media participation and coverage of the product and/or the VIP media event.

Develop an email invitation to send to media, influencers and blogger VIPs, inviting them to the Hershey’s Melted Hot Chocolate VIP media event on National Hot Chocolate Day.

Write a press release and distribute to NYC-based media to garner earned media coverage to raise awareness among NYC consumers – whether residents or tourists – about the Melted Hot Chocolate Foodservice product available for purchase at Hershey’s Chocolate World Times Square.

Coordinate the on-site event, and engage with attending confectionery media, influencers and bloggers to build relationships

Results

The total number of in-store guests increased by 17% vs the previous year.

Hershey’s Chocolate World Times Square location saw an 82.3% increase in sales for the week of Jan. 31, 2020.

Included in Thrillist, a national food, drink, travel and entertainment publication, which has a reach of 25 million.

Leveraging VIPs was an effective way to help Hershey get its message out on social media about the Melted Hot Chocolate and reach new customers.

A total of 14 VIPs attended the event – 10 influencers and 4 guests.

While this was not a paid activation, the goal was to get influencers posting and talking about the Melted Hot Chocolate to reach additional consumers.

The total number of social media followers from on-site influencers was 346,800.

On-site influencers generated a total of 62 posts, including 31 Instagram Stories, 17 Instagram Photos, 11 Facebook Stories, 2 Live Facebook Videos and 1 Replay Facebook Video. These posts generated an estimated combined total of 2,189,196 potential social impressions and 21,100 video views/engagements.