Danone breaks from female-oriented marketing with ‘laddish’ campaign

The #HungerCry campaign, developed by creative agency Naked Communications, will focus on content created during an experiential event in London, which saw the brand’s voice-activated vending machine provide free yogurt to over 400 passersby who proved their hunger by shouting loudly.

It will also see the brand tie with social influencers Arron Crascall, Ben Phillips and Anto Sharp, who danio says are “well-loved across the LadBible demographic” and fit with the humorous and down-to-earth personality of the brand.

The trio will perform “hunger cries” in public locations and post them to Vine, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The campaign is an effort for the brand to target 20 to 35 year old men who don’t consider yogurt as a snack, largely due to the way it has been marketed.

The brand is looking to move away from TV advertising for yogurt, which usually directly targets women with a female protagonist and positions it as a snack or “moment of indulgence”.

Niccolo Rigo, Naked’s strategy director for Europe, told Marketing Week that snacks that are successful with men, such as Pepperami and Snickers, focus on satisfying hunger rather than a health message, something danio is also trying to do with #HungerCry.

The campaign is also an effort to position the snack as “an answer to four o’clock hunger” in response to research cited by the brand which showed that 4pm is the key time at which people feel hungry.

Previously the brand has focused on TV campaigns according to Rigo, which, although they have increased awareness of the brand, have no “solved the problem of relevance”.

The campaign will run until 20 July and the vending machine and influencer content will be promoted online, on social and through VOD.

ATL activity in convenience stores will also target consumers “at the moment of purchase”.

“Awareness of the brand is relatively high, so this is all about how we can increase relevancy,” Rigo said.