With Valentine’s Day less than a month away, it’s not surprising to see companies are already stepping up marketing campaigns to cash in on what is often referred to as a “Hallmark holiday“.
But I was surprised when USA Today announced a new angle that couples tradition with social media. Sweethearts, the 145-year-old brand of candy conversation hearts, will add “Tweet Me” to its repertoire. In the new relationship, Twitter is the talkative one with its 140 characters.
“We’ve always been short and sweet,” says Jackie Hague, vice president of marketing at New England Confectionery, maker of the Sweethearts brand. “In this case, the technology merged with the ritual.”
The partnership doesn’t end there — the confectioner also created an iPhone app that links with your Twitter account so you can customize your candy messages. The virtual candy grams can then be sent privately to the recipient or posted in your Twitter stream. And for those without iPhones, there’s MySweethearts.com.
From a marketing standpoint, the Sweethearts and Twitter match makes sense — both have limited space for characters, and there’s no denying the multitude of catchphrases possible (Tweethearts, anyone?).
But as much as I love both the candy and the social network, I wonder about the audience for the online survey done by Sweethearts last summer. Where were Facebook’s 350+ million users voting for “Friend Me”? The common phrase didn’t even make the top 10.
