Wonka crowdsources a new anthem

Willy Wonka just capped off its first-ever Canadian brand promotional push, introducing a new crowd-sourced Wonka anthem to be recorded by Canadian pop band Simple Plan by the end of the summer.

The campaign, which launched end of May, invited users to submit a single lyric each week to be added to the song,  Tom Houde, Wonka brand manager at Morris (the candy’s Canadian distributor), tells MiC.

After Morris took over distribution for Nestle last year, Houde says they were eager to begin promoting the candy up north. “We wanted to invest in the brand,” he says. “We know there’s a lot of potential in the Canadian marketplace.”

The campaign was designed to reposition the Wonka treats with teens and boys, and leveraged the demo’s love of music as a key creative driver, he says. The contest was promoted with OOH, digital, social media, mobile, experiential and in-store, all which drove back to the contest website, with media from Carat, creative handled by Toronto-based Blue Sky Creative and in-store by Toronto-based DACS. The campaign also toured a number of summer concerts and events geared at youth, offering sampling driving back to the website.

Focusing on making the website easily and immediately accessible through all smartphones and tablets was a key goal, and early figures suggest a high number of visitors came directly from the URL posted in-store, at events and from billboards.

While the campaign concluded on Sunday, this is just the beginning of the brand’s Canadian presence, including upcoming general brand awareness (early creative featured left) of the candies beginning in September, as well as the digital distribution of the Wonka Anthem in late fall. Houde adds that continued Facebook and in-store promotions will be rolled out in the fall and winter, leading up to the second big campaign next spring.