Making a Nutella alternative famous in America

Scope

U.S. agency of record from 2015 to 2018 for the fourth-generation Italian organic brand behind Nocciolata hazelnut-cocoa spread, Fiordifrutta fruit spreads and Dolcedì fruit sweetener, including the American rollout of dairy-free, vegan Nocciolata.

Traditional PR and Fancy Food Show placements, daily social across four platforms, influencer seeding, recipe development, paid social and email.

Challenge

Rigoni di Asiago has farmed and made organic spreads on the Asiago plateau since 1923. In Italy the name carries a century of trust, and the family behind it is now in its fourth generation.

None of that crossed the Atlantic. In an American aisle Rigoni was an unfamiliar import asking shoppers to pay more than the jar they already knew, with no awareness budget to close the gap. The brand was not starting from a weak position so much as from no position at all.

What we did

Crier’s job was to make Rigoni known here the way it is known there, and reputation of that kind is built by other people vouching for you.

So every tactic ended with the product in someone’s mouth rather than in a paragraph. We entered the blind taste tests and comparative rankings where an unfamiliar import can be judged on merit alone. We worked the Fancy Food Show for the buyers and trade press who taste before they stock. We built recipes so editors and bloggers had something to make rather than merely sample, which earned the jar repeat use instead of a single review.

Influencer seeding and giveaways carried the same logic to consumers. When Nocciolata Dairy Free launched, we opened the vegan and free-from press without letting go of the mainstream audience already built.

Results

Judged on taste alone, the products won. Time.com ranked Nocciolata #1 in its Definitive Ranking of Nutella Alternatives, Huffington Post placed it third in a blind taste test, and Supermarket Guru scored Dolcedì 95 out of 100.

Hundreds of placements followed across national magazines, trade press, food television and a large blogger network, among them Epicurious, Serious Eats, Prevention, Clean Eating, Cosmopolitan, Fox & Friends and O, The Oprah Magazine. Nocciolata Dairy Free earned a “Must Have” from VegNews and a Valentine’s roundup on Parade.com, then reaching 2.2M visitors a month.

On social

Facebook grew from 18,500 to 56,500 fans, up 205%, with monthly impressions peaking at 230,000 and a single giveaway driving 12,500 entries against 87,000 reach. Pinterest reached nearly 300,000 average monthly viewers.

Recipes did that work too. A spread is not interesting on its own, but a thing you can make with it on a Tuesday night is, and that is what turns a first jar into a second one.