Johnsonville looks to juice social media algorithms with positive content

Dive Brief:

Johnsonville is attempting to boost positive content on social media with the launch of a “Keep The Internet Juicy” effort timed to National Positive Media Day on June 22, per details shared with Marketing Dive.
The sausage company is collaborating with celebrities, influencers and other brands to push social media algorithms to serve “more outreach and less outrage.” The ploy is part of a “Keep It Juicy” campaign the brand launched in April.
Johnsonville’s marketing is informed by commissioned Harris Poll data that found almost all (89%) U.S. consumers wish social media was less negative, and follows several similar efforts from brands to tamp down on the channel’s toxicity.

Dive Insight:

Johnsonville is looking to “Keep The Internet Juicy” by boosting positive content on social media algorithms through collaborations with celebrities, influencers and other brands. The concept hopes to give stories of “human kindness” a greater share of voice online and inspire similar acts, explained Jamie Schmelzer, the brand’s senior director of marketing, in a statement.

“We are going to use some advertising money to help, but obviously a sausage company can’t fix the internet alone. We’re asking for lots of help,” the executive said.

The effort will include a full-page ad in the New York Times and an Us Weekly ad placement, with other elements to be announced. It will extend through World Kindness Day on Nov. 13. The new push is the latest leg of a “Keep It Juicy” campaign that Johnsonville launched in April, with ads voiced by actor Vince Vaughn.

Both the initial campaign and the new effort are informed by data the brand commissioned from The Harris Poll. Johnsonville’s “National Temperature Check” survey found that four in five U.S. consumers are exhausted by the anger and negativity in America and have people in their lives that they want to reconnect with. A second round of the survey found that seeing positive news online made consumers feel better about the world (88%) and that seeing people do positive things for one another makes them want to do positive things for others (92%).

The negativity of social media and the national mood, in general, have increasingly been the subject of campaigns as brands grapple with intense political polarization that has been amplified by social media algorithms. Such campaigns could become more prevalent as the U.S. prepares for the presidential election in November.

LG Electronics in May launched a global campaign, “Optimism your feed,” that uses a compilation of influencer-backed original content that is meant to pull sunnier posts into a users’ feed. Haribo last year launched a one-day social media broadcast, called “Good News Goldbears,” that shared exclusively happy news.