Krispy Kreme: 80 Years Later and Beyond, Recap from AMA Talk!

On July 13, 1937, Krispy Kreme opened its doors in North Carolina. Fast forward 80 years and Krispy Kreme is sharing the Hot Light, creating virtual reality experiences, promoting emoji doughnuts, and digital social interactions. Today at the American Marketing Association luncheon we learned how Krispy Kreme stays relevant in culture using social and digital marketing to drive consumer engagement. Kelley O’Brien, the director of social media at Krispy Kreme, gave a great presentation on social media/marketing/branding. The presentation points focused on these three areas:

1. Consumer engagement via personalized experiences
2. Measuring the effectiveness of a campaign
3. Global opportunities and vehicles to match your brand

In driving relevance Krispy Kreme is unique because their brand is global expanding into six continents where Krispy Kreme has not had a physical location. Connecting fans across the world and connecting customers while waiting in line at a store openings has been a strategic focus. One best practice has been focused on creating personalized experiences to get people engaged that result in an expansion of their following.
Social engagements help people remember Krispy Kreme moments and create new ones. Krispy Kreme has leverage virtual reality, live events, and surprised fans across the globe by sharing smiles and joy in many ways like "Power Ranger" themed events tied to movie releases. Here are some key takeaways from talk to help your business:

• Listen very closely to your customers. Listen to their posts and comments in social media. Then build content and even products that help deliver on requests made and demand shown for products. Surprise them with it! Learn and adapt!
• Focus on winning "Word of Mouth" marketing so you build legit following organically by real fans who love your product and share it with others.
• Best marketing platforms that help build your following and engagements are Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Instagram, and Spotify. Then leverage other review and blog sites who write about your favorably to co-promote their content.
• Always look for opportunity to reward your customers for participating in events like donuts for a year for first 10 people in line for new store opening. Then once you have hundreds of people lined up, engage with them to join your rewards program and have them become "Ambassadors" for your company. Capture the loyal fans and then convert them into active evangelists for your company.
• When targeting audiences with your message and content make sure it's only being shown to people who genuinely would have an interest in your offering. It's important to exclude people who won't convert so you keep focused on the people that will care and act.
• Be relevant and timely with your content to stay fresh. For example, during the big "Eclipse" solar moment Krispy Kreme launched "Eclipse" donuts and content relevant to this moment in time.
• Know the strengths of your brand and then play to it. Have your content match your company and product positioning. "Tell a story" "Create a community" "Have purpose and connect". For Krispy Kreme it's "Surprise and Delight", "Bring Happy Moments" hence they focus on ceremonies, celebrations, and party occasions.
• Form great relationships with the AD platforms so you can have access to fixes to improve your measurements when needed and have first access to beta programs so you can launch new innovative marketing programs ahead of the rest!

Overall, a good talk by Kelly O' Brien from Krispy Kreme on implementing programs and campaigns via social media channels and branded digital platforms. Thank you American Marketing Association for hosting a good learning experience!

---