Nutella Celebrate Birthday with Genius Marketing

Today was Nutella's birthday and, to celebrate, they had an engaging activity on their Facebook page.  They showed, on their cover photo, a birthday cake covered in lit candles and encouraged visitors to the page to view the birthday cake image and press 'l' (a shortcut for Like on Facebook).

The more Facebook users Liked the photo, the more the cover photo developed through the day with candles being blown out and the words 'Happy Birthday to you Nutella' appearing as it did.  A lovely way to celebrate a birthday but also a genius idea and use of social media.

The page as it stood in the afternoon, after well over 10,000 Likes.

The original image with instructions on had almost 6,000 Likes at time of writing and the series of birthday photos have raised that number to well over 10,000 through the day.  Now, it is important to remember that social media 'Likes' in themselves don't make a huge amount of difference but, knowing that ten thousand people have actively engaged with their brand today and that their socially networked friends have seen this is some great marketing collateral.

Not only have Nutella managed to increase the love that their fans have for the chocolatey spread, they have got their name out as a fun and innovative brand to many thousands of people, all on a free website.  Now, that's what I call social media marketing.