Dive Brief:
- Kellogg launched its first digital food drive campaign on Amazon today, on World Food Day (Oct. 16), as it aims to make it easier for people to donate to Feeding America food banks across the country, a news release announced. The food drive runs through Giving Tuesday on Nov. 27.
- Consumers can "click, ship and donate" nonperishable grocery items, including cereal, canned foods, rice, shelf-stable milk and more, to a Feeding America location through a special Amazon donation page.
- The campaign aims to raise awareness about hunger and the challenges that food banks face, including stocking the right foods to make the biggest impact. Kellogg also has set a goal to donate 1.5 million servings of foods through employee-led meal-packing events and food drives.
Dive Insight:
As more brands are ramping up their focus on cause- and purpose-led marketing initiatives, Amazon aims to show how they can leverage its platform to bolster those efforts. Kellogg's is tapping the e-commerce giant to handle web hosting, donation and shipping services around World Food Day, allowing Amazon to do a lot of the heavy logistical lifting on a platform where many visitors are already primed to make a purchase. If Amazon can repeat these types of efforts, it can be another way for the Seattle-based company to support its quickly accelerating advertising business.
Amazon was recently projected by eMarketer to generate $4.61 billion in U.S. ad revenue this year, far higher than the research group's previous estimates of $2.89 billion. The revised forecast gives Amazon a 4.15% share of the U.S. digital ad market and the No. 3 ranking among digital ad platforms, though it still trails far behind Google and Facebook. However, partnerships like the one with Kellogg show the areas where Amazon can get a leg up on its competitors in being able to link cause-led marketing campaigns to its powerful e-commerce platform.
The move comes at a time when more marketers are finding success by incorporating philanthropy into their work, which appeals to younger generations who want brands to embrace causes that matter to them. By giving consumers the opportunity to participate in the food drive virtually, Kellogg is striving to drive brand awareness among these tech-savvy demographics, which CPG companies have broadly struggled to reach. According to Food Dive, big food companies are feeling the pinch as many consumers have turned toward private label brands and unprocessed prepared foods.
In addition to the food drive, Kellogg has been experimenting more and more on Amazon as e-commerce becomes a bigger priority for packaged food makers. The company was one of the first to use Amazon's new "sponsored" video placements in Prime Pantry for its Frosted Flakes brand. The videos play automatically without sound, as a 10- or 15-second silent spot.
