Krispy Kreme’s Original Glazed® Doughnut has been a customer favorite for 80 years. For the first time in the company’s history we made the decision to “eclipse” the doughnut … in CHOCOLATE. And not just for the day of the eclipse (Monday, August 21) but also for Saturday and Sunday as eclipse anticipation grew... to drive sales over multiple days.

Taking an 80-year staple that customers love and turning it into something other than what it is known for – a deliciously simple glazed doughnut – was an enormous risk that required both courage and the operational savvy to execute on a special weekend of chocolate glazing. But, by connecting consumers’ visceral, sensory reaction to seeing, smelling and tasting the doughnut with the primal reaction to experiencing the eclipse, the idea literally “eclipsed” all others in generating not only epic coverage and conversation, but most importantly, sales.

To achieve first (brand) mover status, we distributed a news release Aug. 9, nearly two weeks ahead of the eclipse, and concurrently pitched targets in the news, culture and science spaces. As expected, our food and lifestyle friendlies quickly engaged. A range of organic (no paid) social posts and engagement kicked in the week before the eclipse, including mouth?watering, shareable images and a video of the doughnut that were also distributed to earned media. We executed more than 40 exclusive “first taste” doughnut drops to top-tier media in New York and Los Angeles the Thursday and Friday before the eclipse (and before the doughnut would be available at retail). To sustain coverage at the local level over the weekend and the Monday of the eclipse, we pitched national network syndicated feeds an irresistible b?roll package of the new doughnut.

The PR-led campaign resulted in more than 2,500 online, print and broadcast earned placements, generating 2.4 billion impressions (Krispy Kreme’s first PR campaign to exceed 2 billion earned media impressions), and organic social that sparked joy, anticipation and sharing, including the most viral post in the brand’s history (reaching 9.2 million people).

Being a first-mover paid off as we generated two or three stories by many media before, during and after the eclipse. We broke into new culture and science-focused media (including Wired, CNET and Gizmodo). ABC’s “Good Morning America,” NBC’s “The Today Show” and FOX’s “Fox & Friends” all received doughnut drops and featured the Chocolate Original Glazed in multiple on?air stories.

This activation followed a “path of total success.” Tasked with developing a PR-led campaign for a courageous idea that would drive sales, Aug. 19-21 was the best three-day period in company history in terms of sales and transactions – not just of the Chocolate Original Glazed but the entire menu:

• Second-best Saturday ever

• Best Sunday ever

• Best Monday ever

How bright did PR shine for Krispy Kreme during the eclipse? Chief Marketing Officer Jackie Woodward turned off – and kept off – paid media the day before the doughnut became available, due to the earned coverage and organic social buzz. “This was an eye?opening moment regarding what we’re capable of when (PR) is really on. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to top this,” she said.

Too often, we in PR are hesitant to tie creative and strategy DIRECTLY to driving sales… defaulting to our discipline being eclipsed by paid or other channels. But for Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, we flipped the communications model, with PR, in the form of earned and shared, directly driving positive business results, while paid filled in for awareness and reach. The best example in 2017 was the brand’s activation around the total solar eclipse in the U.S., during which PR generated the best three-day period in terms of sales and transactions in the company’s long history (and made paid go dark!).

As throughout the year, Krispy Kreme wanted the eclipse activation to attract new, younger consumers generally aged 25-to-34, while mobilizing the brand’s passionate core customers.

While the eclipse would last only two minutes for individual viewers, research showed consumers’ anticipation, interest and engagement would be much longer. People had been planning for more than a year – especially communities, companies and schools in the “path of totality.”

Instead of focusing on food and lifestyle targets, we first targeted news, culture and science media that typically do not cover doughnuts but were in the bull’s eye regarding the eclipse. And we went early, positioning Krispy Kreme as the first mainstream brand to announce an eclipse-themed product, enabling us to “create” and own a news cycle before the eclipse itself and before other brands activated. This was all designed to drive coverage of the doughnut, which, importantly, was premium priced (no discount).

On Aug. 21, 2017, the United States would experience the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in nearly a century, a mega?cultural moment long anticipated by everyone under the sun – from school districts calling off classes, to media coming from around the world to set up in the “path of totality”, to brands looking to capitalize.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, which just weeks earlier had celebrated 80 years of its iconic Original Glazed® Doughnut with a PR-led campaign that generated its top single-day sales and transactions in history, set out the challenge to not just insert Krispy Kreme into the eclipse narrative, but make it shine through the enormous buzz and volume in earned and social media … and more importantly to drive record sales – again.

Coming off our largest integrated activation of the year – the brand’s 80th birthday – we almost glazed over in panic (but just briefly).