Chocolove

Delivering Mouthwatering Media Results for a Premium Chocolate Brand in a Crowded Category

To help position Chocolove as a unique, standout option that shoppers recognize and reach for on store shelves, Linhart supercharged the brand’s newsmaking engine, increasing its media coverage share of voice by more than 3% and landing Chocolove a top spot among core competitors with 43.2% share of voice.

Challenge

With innovative and trendy sweets, chocolates and other snacks entering the marketplace in droves, Chocolove needed to stand out for its high-quality ingredients, diverse flavors and formats, and incredible, elevated taste to encourage trial and build customer loyalty.

Strategy

Linhart saw an opportunity to grow brand awareness and drive trial by increasing Chocolove's news share of voice – which measures earned media visibility and presence in the market compared to competitors – through an always-on news engine focused on introducing new reporters to Chocolove, finding and maximizing opportunities for deeper connections to the brand for media, and offering robust sampling to create authentic reporter advocacy.

Execution

Through a rigorous approach that targeted editors and commerce teams open to covering food products without compensation-generating affiliate links, the team:

Offered media samples to secure inclusion in grocery product reviews from national outlets like The Kitchn and Chowhound, driving purchase consideration and prominence in key articles alongside competitors.
Fostered new connections with ~50 reporters from outlets like Woman’s World and Parents via virtual speed pitching events where participating media are actively looking for products for upcoming gift guides and seasonal roundups. During the one-on-one meetings, the team familiarized reporters with Chocolove, shared information on limited-time offerings and secured more sampling interest primed for coverage.
Expanded Chocolove’s media footprint to drive shoppers into retail year-round—including for dark chocolate for healthy new year and flavors perfect for summer s’mores—through the distribution of two MAT releases that were timely for maximum news interest and included key Chocolove products and local retailer information. The pieces resulted in pick-up nationwide in outlets like The Miami Herald and Houston Chronicle and reached a combined online audience of 300M+.

Sample requests

43.2%

media SOV among competitors

27.71%

more media stories than the previous year

Results

In total, Linhart PR:

Secured 70 sample requests (8 more than the previous year).
Garnered coverage from 22.4% of speed pitching attendees, with notable placements in AllRecipes, HuffPost and Shop TODAY.
Grew media SOV 3.1% over the course of a year, landing Chocolove a top spot among core competitors with a 43.2% total SOV.
Secured 27.71% more stories and 87.87% more impressions than the previous year.

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