Nutella’s Marketing Fail in Warsaw

A few days ago Nutella was celebrating its 50th Birthday all around the world. I attended their “Great Breakfast With Nutella” in Warsaw, Poland. Some years ago I would simply consider it as a “cool event”, however now I look at everything from a marketing point of view.

The event took place at a beautiful Zamek Ujazdowski Garden. When I arrived there was quite a queue but I still decided to stay and wait for my turn to get in. After about 30 minutes of waiting I started thinking that I should leave (I hate waiting!). At the same time I thought: “well, I already wasted 30 minutes, might as well wait some more…” Finally, after about 1 hour wait I was inside the park.

Nutella had 77 tables where they sat their guests, offering an estimated 900 jars of their product that day. They brought some bread, a banana, milk, juice, a few other things and of course, Nutella. To be honest I wasn’t very impressed with the breakfast. Probably because after an hour wait I was expecting something more impressive. Besides the breakfast there were some games where you could win… Nutella swag.

What I couldn’t understand was the fact that no one tried to get our information… While standing in the queue they were giving out small Nutella packs and they could have passed some cards asking for an e-mail address. At the entrance we had to wait for empty seats at the table – this is where they could have asked for a phone number, Facebook like or an e-mail address. You know hot it goes: “Like our Facebook page for your chance to win a year supply of Nutella”. Nope, they didn’t want it. When they served the breakfast, they could have left a card asking for feedback. They didn’t.

I think this event was the perfect reason to get thousands people signing up to Nutella’s e-mailing list and I simply don’t understand why they passed this opportunity. Some people would probably say: “Well, this event wasn’t about Marketing, it was about celebrating 50 years of this brand.” I must disagree with this theory since such events are always marketing stunts in themselves. Inviting people to a free breakfast is marketing. Getting people’s e-mails at such events is proper marketing.

One might also say: “Well, Alex, their marketing strategies obviously work since you are writing about that event and the company.” Sure, I am writing about them but Nutella is such known brand that they don’t need people like me writing about them. They will not acquire more loyal customers because of a blog post like this. They would have acquired more buyers if they would send them a promotion by e-mail or by SMS. Oh wait, they didn’t ask for e-mails…

Do you think Nutella did the right thing by not asking for people’s info? Comment below!

Alex