Corn Nuts Goes Nuts On Twitter: How Social Revitalized The Brand

Corn Nuts was not one of Kraft Heinz’s more successful brands. When compared to Heinz ketchup or Kraft’s mac and cheese, Corn Nuts didn’t stand up, until young professionals – Jennifer Hill and Alec Imaizumi​ – got behind the brand’s social strategy. Corn Nuts has since taken on Twitter and targeted Millennials through a popular social platform.

A Twitter Strategy Powered By Organic Content

Hill, who controls the brand’s Twitter from her smartphone, has grown the @CornNuts Twitter following to 21,000 from 650, with meme-like tweets and a funny brand persona. Her colleague Imaizumi said, “It’s absolutely translated to sales for us.”

As younger consumers grow increasingly skeptical of advertising, according to Marketing Dive, they tend to gravitate to more genuine branding, like Corn Nuts’ humorous Twitter account.

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— CORN NUTS (@CornNuts) May 12, 2019

Since the brand implemented its recent social strategy, Corn Nuts has increased repeat purchases from Millennial consumers by 12%, the company reported. Plus, the brand has seen a 12% increase in retail store sales and a 4% increase in convenience store sales since launching the Twitter campaign. This was a significant jump from Corn Nuts’ stagnant or declining sales trends, according to Imaizumi.

Corn Nuts’ Engagement Encourages A Following

Hill said, “We haven't put any marketing spend [behind it]. It's exciting because we're seeing momentum, not only from a sales side, but even seeing the interaction on the social side and people wanting to advocate for the brand.”

Hide your girlfriends pic.twitter.com/SaWvbTJBZi

— CORN NUTS (@CornNuts) April 23, 2019

Much of Corn Nuts’ Twitter strategy is responding to young fans who are already on the social media platform, an audience who was previously ignored by the brand. “Every time they tweeted or tagged us or messaged us, no one from our end was answering,” Hill said. “The way that I think we've succeeded is that everything that we do is interaction-first, brand awareness hypothetically second and then way down the line do we even talk about product.”

Corn Nuts has proved marketers don’t need huge budgets to implement social marketing strategies that pay off. Putting consumers and engagement with ideal audiences first can help brands grow their followings and even up their revenue.

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About the Author

Victoria Pallien is a Marketing Communications Writer at Digital Media Solutions (DMS), the fastest-growing independent digital performance marketing company. DMS helps its clients accelerate growth by deploying diversified and data-driven customer acquisition solutions that deliver scalable, sustainable and measurable marketing results. DMS performance marketing solutions connect the right consumers with the right offers at the right time to achieve the marketing objectives of our clients. DMS is continually innovating to provide new and emerging media and technology solutions that minimize waste and maximize results across the most competitive industries. Since its inception, DMS has demonstrated incredible year-over-year growth which has earned recognition on the Inc. 5000 list in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

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