DePaul Digital PR Class

Mello Yello’s crisp citrus taste is one that the majority of us are familiar with. The company recently relaunched its brand image by creating a new campaign called “They Call Me Mello Yello”. The name of this campaign is based off Donovan’s hit song from 1966, and since a retro remix has been made, the new song is tied to this campaign. This campaign reaches out to people in today’s most effective way by interaction through social media.

This video doesn’t have to do with the new Mello Yello campaign, but it gives a good idea who the brand targets, their style of advertising, and why they refer to their product as “smooth”. "Smooth" Mello Yello Ads. 

The official Mello Yello website offers a free download of the new song. It also has a quiz that people can take in order to measure their smoothness called the “How Smooth Are You?” quiz. Once the quiz is completed, the website offers the option of sharing the quiz results on Facebook or through e-mail with your friends. The website also contains basic company and product information.

The Facebook page has a new app called The Retro Smooth Photo Generator. This app allows people to upload photos and transform them into retro hipster photos with just the click of a button. The Facebook page has 100,207 likes and 885 people are taking about it. Under the information section there’s a brief company overview, a link to the website, a link to the twitter page, and a link to the free song download. The Facebook page also has a link to the Smooth Quiz. There’s a “MY Nation” tab that allows users to share videos and photos and be aware of what kind of buzz is going around about Mello Yello. On the Facebook wall anyone is able to post about their experience with Mello Yello and share any kind of photos they would like. Mello Yello keeps up with their posts and gave away a package of free gifts to their 100,000^th fan.

The Twitter page is updated several times a day. It provides a link back to the Facebook page so that consumers are able to access both extremely easily. They engage with their followers quite frequently and often offer to ship free Mello Yello to people who have never tried or who tweet that they are thirsty.

The original Facebook page was consumer-created and not as interactive or engaging as it is today. BFG Communications is a marketing agency that reached out to the owner of the page. They worked together to create the most effective ways to interact with consumers. More than seventy five percent of the Facebook fans are twenty-five years old or younger which shows that Mello Yello is doing a wonderful job targeting the younger technology savvy generations and raising awareness to those who aren’t as familiar with Mello Yello as those consumers in the ‘80s were. I believe that the Facebook page is doing a really good job answering questions, frequently updating new posts, providing fun activities, and engaging in conversation with their audiences.

The Mello Yello website is a fun way for consumers to view how the company represents itself. I think it’s a really smart idea to link the quiz to social media because it creates buzz and drives other people to the website as well. I think the website does a good job letting viewers know that the song is linked to the brand. Offering a free download of the song is always a good idea because there are always those viewers who are interested and would enjoy adding the song to their playlists. One thing the website could include would be adding a section of a live media feed. Since Mello Yello’s social media presence is growing, it’s always a good idea for a company to show its engagement on those sites and guide their viewers without having to search in Facebook or Twitter themselves.

I think there are several improvements that Mello Yello could make on their Twitter page. Although there is absolute engagement between the brand and their followers, every single tweet was offering followers free product. This can be both good and bad. It can be good because everyone loves free things, it will create buzz, and they will quickly gain more followers. It can be negative because everyone will follow expecting to get free products from the brand and become let down if they don’t receive what their friends did. I would assume that Mello Yello only tweets a certain amount of followers back and offers free beverages. Although every tweet including a free giveaway could potentially become a problem, I view it to be pretty cool and also a great marketing tactic to create word of mouth. It shows people how much Mello Yello cares about their consumers and social media followers. I would suggest that in order to improve their Twitter page, they offer more than just free giveaways. There are several ways to get creative and engage with an audience. If I were on the social media team for the new Mello Yello campaign, I would engage with consumers by encouraging them to take the Smooth Quiz and then asking them how they did. I would also encourage followers to post pictures of themselves and incorporate the Mello Yello product. Since Twitter limits users to 140 characters, I believe it would be really interesting to see how creative followers could get if the brand offered free product as a competition. An example of this could be whoever can express (by writing and photo) why they love Mello Yello in the most creative way wins something.

Overall, I believe the “My Name Is Mello Yello” campaign is a great way to relaunch an already well-known brand. Mello Yello is not changing its product or launching a new product. The point of this campaign is to incorporate the remix of the “My Name Is Mello Yello” song into their brand and make great efforts to reach out and interact with their consumers through social media.