Nutella is more than just a beloved hazelnut spread. It’s happiness in a jar. As the agency of record for Nutella’s PR, influencer and social media efforts, Golin helps spread happiness all year long through integrated campaigns, keeping the product top of mind and stocked in pantries.    

Every holiday season, Nutella invites its fans to come together and create lasting memories through family baking moments. This year, the brand sought a fresh idea to inspire families to spread a smile and bake collaboratively, across generations. Inspiring consumers to use Nutella as part of their holiday baking recipes can sometimes be a challenge – special homemade treats and baked goods are a staple holiday gift idea BUT they may not be currently using Nutella in their recipes. So, they need crave worthy, on-trend inspiration to encourage Nutella in their holiday plans. Here’s how we did it. 

Background 

Baking is a universal love language that crosses generations—and nobody’s better at it than grandmas. They’re the undisputed authorities on holiday baking traditions that bring families together. And no grandmas are better at baking with Nutella than the ones from its homeland: Nonnas. After a tumultuous 2020 & 2021, 2022 was set to be one of the biggest holidays for family & friend gatherings in recent memory. And an opportunity for Nutella to tap into togetherness, create brand love, and increase demand. 

Approach and Execution 

To celebrate togetherness, Nutella introduced the first “Nutella Nonna”, an Italian expert grandma ready to share her holiday baking wisdom and invite families to share their Nutella holiday recipes. The brand partnered with Nonna Pia, who is known for her irresistible charm and viral cooking videos, filmed by her grandson, to encourage fans to create special holiday baking memories together, participate in the #NutellaNonnaContest with a chance to win a trip to Italy and, of course, have their recipe become “Nutella Nonna Approved”. As a bonus for every entry, Nutella donated $1 to Generations United, a national nonprofit organization that strengthens practices and policies to benefit all generations. 

Working with Nonna Pia and coordinating a full production shoot in her home kitchen, Nutella shared 7 campaign videos on Instagram along with two Nutella recipes that Nonna enjoys during the holidays with her own family. The consumer response was immediate and overwhelming, with fans praising Nonna and Nutella for their authentic connection – “Nutella did a great job on making a collaboration with Nonna” – said one fan on Instagram. 

Results  

The integrated campaign included a full contest microsite (NutellaNonna.com), earned media outreach, a Nutella Nonna custom mailer including consumer surprise and delights, partnership support from the @FeedFeed influencer community and digital media. The campaign was a great success, delivering:  

• 411M earned media impressions with placements in outlets such as FoodSided and AdAge
• 4.3M organic social media impressions (289% above goal) 
• 217k organic social media engagements (164% above goal) 
• 5% average engagement rate on owned and influencer Instagram content  
• 3k link clicks from social influencer content to Nutella Nonna microsite 
• Oodles of content entries from fans and those just discovering the brand 

Key Learnings 

• Influencer authenticity is paramount to partnership success. The team knew ahead of time that Nonna Pia was a personal fan of Nutella and had used it before in her recipes and TikTok videos. The natural relationship between our star influencer and Nutella resonated well with consumers, generating tremendous positive sentiment.  
• Save yourself time when working with one hero influencer. Building in a full production day at Nonna Pia’s home kitchen not only added to our campaign authenticity (as this is where all her cooking/baking videos are filmed) but it helped Nutella capture all the videos at once and edit together in order to go live during prime holiday weeks. 
• Leverage platform tools for audience success. The cross promotion of content using Instagram’s collaboration feature helped reach both Nonna’s and Nutella’s audiences and bolstered social metrics instead of posting the same video in two places, bifurcating the audience and the engagements.  
• Build in earned ideas that plus up the activation. The team also learned that even with a grand prize trip to Italy, media were less interested in a holiday contest/sweeps pitch and more interested in Nonna and the limited-edition Nutella holiday jars – things consumers could really get their hands on.