For most U.S.-based CMOs, joining the C-suite at the start of the pandemic was challenging enough to onboard a new role while pivoting all messaging and operations for one market.
But for Santhi Ramesh, a 7-year veteran of The Hershey Company who was promoted to CMO – International in early 2020, her elevated responsibilities included pivots for dozens of territories, and a candy portfolio whose flagship chocolate brand had campaigns worldwide depicting the joys of sharing chocolate with others.
“I’m amazed by how our teams at Hershey were able to quickly adapt to the changing needs of consumers during the pandemic,” Ramesh says as she reflects on the many quick decisions she oversaw in the first weeks of lockdown. “Our purpose is to create more moments of goodness, and with the Hershey brand we dimensionalized consumer togetherness and sharing of chocolate to create those wonderful moments. This sharing couldn’t be done really during the pandemic, so we had to quickly pivot to new campaigns that leveraged our Hershey employees and showcased real-life everyday consumer moments with near and dear ones. So, simple ones like a kid sharing a chocolate with his mom at home, or a couple enjoying chocolate at home and watching TV.”
Ramesh also saw an opportunity to market to the rise in at-home baking, coining the trend “eatertain” after observing international nuances in baking behavior through social listening. “We dialed up our marketing campaign to serve these consumers in Canada, India, Mexico and Brazil by geo-targeting, leveraging user-generated content and providing easy-to-use recipes that were customized by complexity, preparation time, et cetera. As a result, we were able to increase sales by 1.5 times across multiple markets.”
More than a year into the pandemic, Ramesh’s results-driven approach across Hershey’s portfolio is paying off big time. In Hershey’s second-quarter 2021 earnings, the company’s International segment reported a 70.2% increase in net sales compared to the same period in 2020, helping the company achieve a worldwide increase of 16.5% in net sales during the quarter.
Ramesh credits a big part of this turnaround to the accelerated adoption of ecommerce worldwide. “We had to double down in the space on all fronts and expand our capabilities to tap into the consumer share of wallet,” she says. “I’m particularly proud of how we’ve been able to deliver a holistic omnichannel consumer experience that drove consumer traffic, engaged with them and tracked them along the journey to drive conversion and online retail sales. [Our ecommerce strategy] is essentially bringing brand marketing and performance marketing together. So with these pivots, thanks to our fantastic teams around the world, I’m proud to say we’ve been able to increase market share and strengthen brand power across the world.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Ramesh from her home office to learn more about the international product trends fueling Hershey’s post-pandemic growth, celebrating unsung women with the award-winning “HerShe” initiative and what she learned about unorthodox ways to eat a Reese’s from a recent social campaign. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Brand Innovators: What product trends are you seeing within Hershey business internationally during the pandemic and how have you tapped into these trends?
Santhi Ramesh: At Hershey, we pride ourselves on delivering consumer insights and innovation platforms to add value to consumers, retail partners and our shareholders. And in the pandemic, we continued to keep abreast of these fast-changing consumer needs and deliver new products by capitalizing on three trends.
First of all, obviously consumers are increasingly conscious of their health and wellness. Therefore we saw an increase in focus on our better-for-you platform. Consumers have diverse needs across markets, from those seeking portion control to those seeking functional benefits. We served those needs by launching a variety of products across markets to meet these needs. In india we launched Hershey hot chocolate with immunity, where we delivered a delicious product with added immunity-supporting vitamins and minerals. In Mexico we launched zero sugar Hershey chocolate this year, it gives you the delicious chocolate without the added sugar, so it’s the best of both worlds. In Canada, we launched Reese’s cups in a portion controlled format. And in Brazil, we expanded our portfolio with a premium dark chocolate delivering over 75% of antioxidants.
The second trend we focused on was to enable consumers to connect with their family and friends during the pandemic. Especially since consumers were unable to celebrate during those festive occasions with their friends and family, we expanded our gifting portfolio to help consumers celebrate. We focused on our Fillable Kisses product line, where we offered unique flavors like truffle-filled Kisses, strawberry-filled Kisses and cherry-filled Kisses in gift-ready packs that came included with a neat bow. And we saw a tremendous boost in sales across markets, particularly in the Philippines and Mexico.
And third, we never forgot the importance of comfort, especially during the stressful times of the pandemic. Consumers relied on their favorite trusted brands like Hershey to deliver high-quality products with great taste and provide a sensorial experience, which is key to delivering comfort. We therefore customized our innovation to attract Gen Z and millennials and we launched Ice Cream Shoppe, which offered limited-edition flavors in 14 countries around the world, and it was a tremendous success. And as a result, we launched this summer in the U.S. as well. To attract young families, we launched Pelon Spicy Sweet candy in Mexico with lemon and salt flavors in a variety of formats, which boosted share by 300-plus basis points. And then to revitalize our business among empty nesters and gain relevance with millennials we launched Twizzlers Tongue Twisters, which you eat during scenetime. It was a resounding success and won 2021 best new product [in Canada] in the candy category. So overall, with these new products we served consumer needs, increased basket size and average ticket for retailers, and dialed up the relevance of our brands with consumers and thereby gained new users to our franchise while increasing profitability of our brands.
That’s a lot of new products in a relatively short amount of time. What has the past year of getting these new innovations off the ground amid a pandemic taught you about the importance of agility and fast decisions?
It was challenging. With the example of Ice Cream Shoppe, it was tricky launching across multiple countries, and the key was to get to a common insight by celebrating similarities around the world. And the second aspect was to leverage design thinking within a constrained process to deliver consumer needs while delivering profitability. And third, we wanted to be agile and quick to market, and therefore we used the sprint process to quickly launch initiatives. And that is how we have increased our speed to market for these products, being able to meet the change in consumer needs.
And it is not just a marketing function. Especially in the case of Ice Cream Shoppe, we had to cater to the needs of 14 countries and we really focused on the common aspects across the world on all functions. Special thanks to my R&D, regulatory supply chain and innovation teams for developing these products with speed, because we were able to launch this from idea to launch in just 10 months across 14 markets. And also special thanks to the sales and marketing teams for bringing the insight to life in-store and online, because that is when you can truly drive sales. We were able to triple our sales forecast, and it was one of the top-selling SKUs during the launch period.
You mentioned that you advanced Hershey’s global ecommerce strategy this past year – could you elaborate on your strategy and how you have leveraged external partners within the area?
My vision is to deliver a seamless, relevant, engaging omnichannel experience for the consumer along their shopping journey — from discovery of our brands to purchase and eventually re-purchase. The strategy is to integrate brand marketing with performance marketing. We want to be found in those times consumers are searching for us, and we want to engage them with relevant content on the media channels of their choice. And it has to be customized for each touchpoint, whether it’s Instagram or Twitch or Twitter. And that’s where we are gradually evolving our teams going forward with this approach.
We have institualized these best practices by sharing learnings across markets. The beauty of this business unit is our markets are in varying levels of maturity and each one of us has different strengths. But together we make a stronger and bigger whole by leveraging and sharing these best business practices.
We’re also able to set up new business models with emerging fulfilment models like 1-hour delivery, especially by teaming with partners like Rappi in Brazil and Mexico or Cornershop in Canada, which is similar to Instacart. And additionally, we have advanced our capabilities by partnering externally to expand our ecosystem of marketing technologies to provide this holistic consumer experience. So we’re continuing to learn as new technologies emerge. And the beauty is that our teams are embracing this approach of test, learn, iterate and reapply quickly to learn more about what the shopper needs.
Hershey was recognized by Ad Age and Cannes Lions for its “HerShe” campaign, which is a great example of incorporating Diversity & inclusion as part of your consumer engagement. What was the strategy behind this initiative?
As a company, we’re invested in diversity and inclusion, thanks to the great women leaders in our organization. And this particular initiative is very personal to me. We’ve all had to overcome challenges, and I’m very fortunate to have the right support system, great mentors and sponsors both male and female, who have helped me achieve these accomplishments by persevering, growing and allowing me to celebrate my achievements. But the reality is there are many women achievers who have not been given this opportunity to shine or tell their own story.
This was the insight we wanted to tap into, so our idea was to make the invisible women visible. Our fantastic Brazil team came up with this exciting idea to celebrate unsung stories of “sheroes,” which we lifted and applied across multiple markets. So Hershey chocolate bars became a canvas for the beautiful stories on unsung women, whether they were artists, social entrepreneurs or teachers, and we gave voice and visibility to deserving women who have made an impact on society by promoting their stories on social media, on Hershey wrappers as well as ongoing messaging. As a result the campaign increased brand awareness by 300 basis points.
In addition to launching lots of new products this year, I’m sure you’ve learned new insights about some of Hershey’s best-known products as well. Any highlights from your portfolio where consumers taught you something new about a classic brand?
One thing we learned a lot from was user-generated content. Real, authentic content is key to being relevant to consumers and it’s important for us to engage them in a meaningful way. As consumer patterns changed, we had to quickly pivot our campaigns to cater to multiple brands during the pandemic. The situational context was no longer relevant, and in order to stand out of the media clutter we had to be disruptive and be targeted in our messaging. So one of the campaigns where we leveraged user-generated content was “I Love Reese’s,” where we were able to get real, authentic content in a short amount of time. It not only drove brand power but it also boosted sales.
We discovered through consumers various ways to eat a Reese’s cup — some of them opened the wrapper and nibbled the edges and ate the middle, some of them stacked it and ate it as a sandwich, some left them in the refrigerator to chill. We wanted to celebrate this insight and uncover new consumer rituals. We uncovered 20 new rituals with this user-generated campaign, which requested consumers to submit all the ways they eat Reese’s. We promoted this campaign through geo-targeting and contextual targeting, and we customized the messaging at each touchpoint. We also integrated it with retailers at the point of purchase like Amazon or Walmart.com, and as a result we were able to not only drive brand marketing but also the performance marketing. We adapted this campaign by market based on brand penetration, and we increased the reach with the same level of investment and still drove double digit sales growth.
So what’s your Reese’s ritual? Do you have a traditional or unorthodox way of eating yours?
I am traditional, I like peeling the wrapper, nibbling around the edges and enjoying the delicious bottom. The one thing I would say is there is a debate among consumers because sometimes the Reese’s cup leaves a sticky residue on the wrapper, I love the sticky part. Some people hate it, but I love the sticky part that becomes the extra level of relishing the sticky Reese’s on the bottom. To this insight, we actually created a new social campaign in Canada where we created a debate around: do you like it sticky or clean? It was literally a 50/50 response rate, which goes back to the power of user generated content.
Andrew Hampp is an entertainment marketing consultant for Brand Innovators and the founder of consultancy 1803 LLC, based in Berkeley, California.
