MANILA, Philippines - Swiss food and beverage giant Nestle is spending more on digital advertising than it used to, following a successful team-up with Google.
Nestle's Head of Marketing Patrice Bula said advertising through social media would now take up 12% of Nestle's annual advertising spend globally, up from 10% previously.
Just last October, Google --- which has a penchant for naming its Android mobile operating system after sweets --- announced that its latest system would be called "Android KitKat", after Nestle's chocolate and wafer confectionery.
The result --- 1.6 billion tweets about Kitkat, 20 million Facebook fans, and KitKat accounting for 60% of the conversation on confectionery in social media since the launch of Android, according to Bula.
It was an innovative way of branding for the 57-year-old marketeer Bula, who admitted he didn't realize the potential of digital advertising in boosting a Nestle brand.
"It was ignorance. I had no idea this was so important to some people," Bula told journalists during his visit to Manila late last week.
"It's very interesting to see that such a simple product can create so much conversation."
Google's announcement ended several months of speculation over the name of its latest version, which should start with the letter "K", since Google's engineers tag their products in alphabetical order and before KitKat, there was "Android Jelly Bean".
Bula recounts he realized the Android campaign was "big", only when he was invited by British broadcaster BBC for an exclusive interview 12 hours before Google's release.
Online advertising bodes well for the Philippine market, said Nestle Philippines CEO John Martin Miller.
"The Philippines is one of the most digital savvy in the world. It's no surprise that this is the ideal medium. Filipinos are the most networked people in the world," Miller said.
Nestle would be capitalizing on that, he said.
"We have to be where people are living. And they're online," Miller added.
Nestle won't be bringing into the Philippines any Kitkat bar with the Android logos on it --- the company has so far produced 20 million bars with that logo since the launch.
But Miller said Filipinos would be seeing more digital ads for KitKat and Nescafe, which are Nestle's most active brands in the digital space.
The Nestle CEO however pointed out that TV advertising will continue to get the largest chunk of its advertising budget.
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
