Tate & Lyle's
Let Them Eat Cake

The Challenge

The brief was to capitalise on the buzz around the recent Royal Wedding to promote Tate & Lyle Sugars market leading Royal Icing Sugar. The idea had to engage and reward our existing online community, 'We Love Baking', but it also needed to be big enough and compelling enough to work outside the realms of social media. Our target was to recruit 5,000 new fans to the 'We Love Baking' Facebook page and generate a PR-able online buzz.

The Solution

The idea was to allow our 25,000 strong 'We Love Baking' community to design and, if they wished, bake their own wedding cake for Will and Kate. Entrants uploaded their designs to a Facebook app for all the community to view. Two winners and four runners-up were selected by a judging panel to be exhibited in the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner the weekend before the Royal Wedding. The exhibition was also promoted and was free for the public to visit during Easter weekend. The competition and exhibition was called 'Let Them Eat Cake' and was further promoted through blogger outreach, Facebook advertising and an email newsletter to Tate & Lyle Sugars' database.

The Results

The activity was a huge success for Tate & Lyle Sugars with thousands of people engaging with the app and Facebook page. The competition delivered 120 entries and increased new 'Likes' of the 'We Love Baking' page by over 20% - over 3,000 members of the public attended the 4-day exhibition in London. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. 30% of bloggers we contacted published content about the campaign which then went viral with hundreds of comments and posts in forums and social media sites. The activity was also picked up by a number of online publications from baking enthusiast sites and local press, right through to national and global publications. The success of the campaign was down to an idea that was relevant and engaging to the target audience and key influencers. It was executed with the level of thought and detail that is required when delivering success in the digital space.