At the end of last year coffee brand Nescafe made the surprising decision to move its entire global and local sites to Tumblr. This case study looks at how the Nestle-owned brand has fared in the following six months. Nescafe was the first global brand to move all websites to Yahoo-owned blogging platform Tumblr, which […]
At the end of last year coffee brand Nescafe made the surprising decision to move its entire global and local sites to Tumblr. This case study looks at how the Nestle-owned brand has fared in the following six months.
Nescafe was the first global brand to move all websites to Yahoo-owned blogging platform Tumblr, which lets users share the things and create conversations online.
The first global brand to do so, the bold move to Tumblr was designed to heighten consumer-led communication and build stronger relationships with young coffee lovers than a traditional website would allow.
Six months on, 45 Nescafe Tumblr sites are now live around the world, with a further 20 expected online by the end of the year.
Initial results indicate the platform is much more than a social hangout for expressive, gif-loving teens. The Tumblr pages have directly generated an increase in sales of $200,000, with just 10 sites to date offering the option to buy online.
Engagement and traffic have also soared, with visits per month up by 29% and users spending 18% longer during each visit – evidence that a move to a content-led platform can deepen engagement.
Adopting Tumblr as the sole platform for Nescafe.com was seen internally as essential for Nescafe to effectively reach one of their key audiences – the millennial generation.
Sean Murphy, Head of Global Strategic Marketing for Nescafe, said: “Tumblr has been an immediate success with the people who drink our coffee. They go there to find and follow what they love. Nescafe is all about starting real connections and human warmth through millions of coffee conversations everywhere, every day – including online. Moving from a traditional consumer website to a more user-led, content-rich platform like Tumblr sees us bring this to life.”
Nescafe at Tumblr hosts a live stream of tweets and retweets from Nescafe social accounts around the globe.
Sixty-five markets will be online by the end of the year, 10 markets already offer the option to purchase Nescafe direct from the site with a BUY NOW button and a further 16 are in the pipeline.
Pros and cons or Tumblr for brands
Nestle brands were the first to make the move, but will others follow? Our take is that Tumblr is more an extra point in a brand’s digital marketing ecosystem than being a substitute for the core brand website.
Pros
• Fast to set up
• Low cost to run
• A lightweight SaaS style approach that overcomes the challenges of brand website tech build
• Easy to share content
• Good creative control (for a third part platform)
• Online ad retargeting through Yahoo’s programmatic partnerships
Cons
• There’s no such thing as a free lunch (remember Facebook’s U-turn in 2012 having given brands all of the same advantages)
• Audiences skew to a particular young demographic
• Poor SEO because of weak keyphrase optimisation
• In comparison to brand websites, this is a space where you won’t own the data
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