Besides, in comparison with other social media networks, Instagram has higher engagement rates (%). Engagement rate provides an insight into how active the brand’s audience is and how well the brand’s Instagram strategy is working. According to Laurence (2018), Twitter and Facebook attract on average between 0.5% and 1.0% engagement, while Instagram between 3% and 6%. Thus, having an engagement rate of more than 6% will lead the brand to better opportunities in terms of community engagement and revenue growth.

Lindt & Sprüngli Target Audience

The Lind & Sprüngli consumer is generally over 30 years old who lives an upper-middle class lifestyle and enjoys superior quality of the brand’s chocolate (Townsend, 2015). It is also important to attract a younger consumer who can contribute to brand awareness by sharing his or her experiences associated with the Lind & Sprüngli brand with his or her peers, and who will become a dedicated costumer of the brand’s chocolate over a period of time.  

Thus, the current public relations campaign will mainly focus on Instagram having in mind a younger consumer. And to be successful, genuine and engaging in the digital space, Lind & Sprüngli should not publish unrelated images with short captions at irregular intervals (that is the case with the current practice of the brand), but should have a thoughtful strategy and a well-defined brand identity expressed through visual creativity, efficient community management and clear communication.    

THE IMPORTANCE OF INFLUENCER MARKETING

Instagram is a social media network where brands can find relevant influencers who, in turn, can help generate awareness and affect the purchasing decisions of those who search for and value their expertise, read their blogs and communicate with them via discussion forums or by attending their presentations at industry events. If influencers are truly interested in the brand’s message, use the product or service themselves and support the brand’s values, they will share a meaningful and useful content more frequently. In fact, they may even spontaneously begin talking about the brand, its products and services. Thus, it can be concluded that a selection of the influencer to collaborate with has a deciding impact on the efficiency of the campaign.

One of the key things that influencer marketing enables the brand to do is to raise the brand’s awareness within the industry. Most likely, the key influencers will review one of the brand’s products, publish a post mentioning the brand’s product or write a company review. Besides, influence marketing provides an opportunity to communicate the brand’s value proposition, offerings, and company background to the audience the brand may not otherwise have engaged with. This may result in more people visiting the brand’s website, following and engaging with the brand on Instagram that in turn may increase the sales.

ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT SITUATION

Lindt & Sprüngli reports that it is facing challenges in North America and, especially, in its home Swiss market; however, it continues to grow. According to a Chairman’s semi-annual report (2016), “the biggest challenges facing the company in the first six months of the year were continuously high raw material prices for cocoa beans and cocoa butter, stagnating chocolate markets and generally subdues consumer sentiment”. Besides, the Swiss market has been recently suffering because consumers prefer to shop in neighbouring countries and the brand’s retail partners are under pressure from hard discounters.

One of the ways to increase brand awareness and start boosting sales is to start serving content that the brand’s audience will accept and share with its own network. An effective way to distribute the content is via social media networks, especially through Instagram, which allows users to share photos or videos that are followed by short but effective descriptions.

Analysis of the Official Swiss Lindt & Sprüngli Instagram Account

Followers

The official Instagram account of Lindt & Sprüngli in Switzerland has 6, 135 followers (data from January 2018). In contrast, its counterpart in the US has 100, 000 followers, in Italy - 56, 300, in Germany - 7, 102 and in the UK – 8, 501 followers. Since Lindt & Sprüngli is an authentic Swiss brand, it is vital to position it as the leader in the chocolate industry in Switzerland in the digital space as well.

Engagement Rate

Currently, the engagement rate of the official Swiss account is 4.11% on average, which indicates that the brand’s audience actively engages with the brand via its content. According to an analysis of the account, the audience is active the most in April, possibly due to Easter holidays, and in December, most likely due to festive Christmas period, when chocolate becomes the most famous product. The top three hashtags are #happyeaster, #chocoletti and #lindtswitzerland.  

Instagram Influencers

Lindt & Sprüngli is collaborating with some of the Swiss Instagram bloggers and influencers. For example, with @ tiphainemarie_, @lety_, and @ iosononera. While these influencers have a decent number of followers, it is difficult to associate them with chocolate or food related topics and especially with the brand. Thus, it is important to choose individuals who are more related to the brand, have influence over the brand’s target segment and, eventually, its target buyers.

Besides, the company signed a long-term partnership with the Swiss tennis champion Roger Federer to gain an extra popular identification potential for the Lindt & Sprüngli brand. Federer acts as a unique embodiment of Lindt & Sprüngli’s fundamental values, “such as Swissness, premiumness, quality, and passion, making him an ideal global brand ambassador”.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PR INSTAGRAM CAMPAIGN

The objectives of the current public relations Instagram campaign are the following: 

• to drive brand awareness by attracting more consumers (followers) under the age of 30 who are frequent Instagram users, and growing Lindt & Sprüngli Instagram following organically from 6, 135 to 15,000 followers by the end of Q4 2018;

• to identify and connect with a relevant food or lifestyle influencer, interested in the brand and its products, per quarter, and in total with four influencers in 2018 who will expose the brand to their large Instagram community;

• to increase Lindt & Sprüngli sales from the Instagram direct response campaigns by 20% by the end of Q4.

In this case study you have learned how to design a public relations campaign for Instagram using an example of Lindt & Sprüngli. You can also use the same structure for a traditional PR campaign since it contains all the essential elements for a smooth execution of your project. Just a couple of things to remember: write the proposal of the PR campaign in plain English so that your management gets a clear picture and understands straight away what the campaign is about, why and how you are going to execute it. 

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