Nescafé is the first Nestlé global brand to make the move to Tumblr. With some 60% of traffic coming from mobile devices the company is watching with interest to see how the new site develops.
Bought by Yahoo in 2013 in a $1.1bn deal, Tumblr was launched in 2007 as a blogging platform which – in its own words - ‘lets you effortlessly share anything... text, photos, quotes, links, music and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, e-mail or wherever you happen to be.’
Away from ‘static’ websites
Part microblog and part social network, it now hosts around 72.3m posts a day. For Nescafé, the attraction is that it allows ‘real connections’ with its consumers and the chance to be part of conversations among people who are passionate about coffee.
Both global and local Nescafé sites will move to Tumblr. Michael Chrisment, global head of integrated marketing, Nescafé, told BeverageDaily the move to Tumblr will appeal to millennials: encouraging creative communication and linking well with mobile devices.
“A key point is accessibility,” he said. “In this world mobile goes first, and really the website is truly optimized for mobile smart phones and tablets.
“There’s clearly a key difference with the new website being totally responsive, for both desktop and mobile, and optimised for various bandwidths.”
“It’s really moving away from traditional dot com websites, where we were fairly static. We’re moving away from traditional setup to be better connected by specifically with millennials.”
The rise of the coffee selfie?
Nescafé says the platform will make it easy to integrate user-generated content – posts created and posted by anyone - from coffee-related selfies to videos and GIFs. The platform will let people share ‘new coffee creations, multi sensorial flavours, and the coolest coffee experiences.’ The pages will be moderated.
Nescafé is already Nestle’s top-performing brand on social media with more than 35m fans worldwide.
The Twitter and Facebook pages will be kept active: Chrisment says these platforms complement the Tumblr way of working. Most pages on Nescafé’s Tumblr site gives users a chance to share on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr.
But what about the Nescafé’s older audience – and those not accustomed to Tumblr and social media?
Chrisment says the site is transparent and easy to use: “It’s enabled by Tumblr so behaves differently [to a conventional website] – but will not go against an older audience.
“And [this audience] is also very active on social networks – my mum is on Facebook – I don’t think it’s going to be an issue to an older audience.”
In addition, other more traditional communication channels such as TV, radio, consumer services and the packs themselves remain, he added.