Fazer: Leveraging Data Cloud for personalised marketing at scale

Starting as a cafe in 1891, today Fazer operates in the fast-moving consumer goods industry in the Nordics and Baltics, delivering products to over 40 countries worldwide. They have 6000 employees working in three main business units – Bakery, Confectionary, and Lifestyle Foods – with a 1,2 billion euro annual turnover. Besides their namesake Fazer products, you might recognise them from their beloved brands, such as Oululainen, Gateau, Skogaholm, Dumle, or Geisha, just to name a few. 

Need for compelling journeys   

As part of their strategy of creating holistic consumer experiences, Fazer wanted to offer a personalised experience and a way for customers to interact with them across all digital channels such as e-commerce and social media. 

Fazer started by crafting a well-received customer community and loyalty program called MyFazer. Equipped with online purchasing, the platform allows customers to join the program to receive different benefits and participate in product development. MyFazer also opened a direct sales channel, as customers can purchase their favourite products directly from Fazer. 

Next, Fazer wanted to be able to segment consumers and create different journeys automatically to drive real-time cross-channel campaigns. Fazer had a lot of customer data, which marketing needed easy access to. Building and optimising segments were time-consuming and difficult, making creating targeted campaigns and measuring their impact arduous. 

“Customer centricity is part of our strategy, and we had been collecting customer data for many years, but we had challenges activating and targeting the customers based on that data. We needed the 360-degree view of the customer to reach them in different touch points across customer journeys,” says Anna Rowlinson, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Fazer. 

Paid marketing can be costly without accurate targeting, thus with the correct data Fazer wanted to develop its marketing efficiency and drive the media spend while reducing costs. To achieve all the above, Fazer needed an integrated customer data platform to have all actionable data in one place. 

Planning for a smooth adoption 

Operating within the Salesforce ecosystem already, Fazer selected Data Cloud as their customer data platform. Salesforce’s Data Cloud empowers marketers to collect and segment consumer data and activate relevant customer audiences. 

Fazer turned on their trusted Salesforce partner Fluido to help them plan and manage the project. But before diving into the technical aspects, the team looked extensively at the business implications and goals of the tool. 

“We divided the project into two parts: first we did an extensive pre-study and then the actual implementation project. We started by outlining the business case, defining use cases, and aligning all the stakeholders. So when we started with the implementation, we had already done all the legwork and knew exactly what we’re doing,” Rowlinson says. 

The team estimated the business impact for each use case and set a corresponding KPI in the pre-study. They looked at the financial side and assessed benefits per business unit, revenue increase versus cost decrease, and monetary value versus customer experience value. This way the project team could communicate the project’s value to the stakeholders. 

“During the planning phase, we comprehensively presented the project’s goals and benefits to the business management. This, together with the business case calculation, helped us to get the necessary support and sufficient resources for the project,” Aki Yrjölä, Senior Manager, ICT Architecture at Fazer, says. 

The business case also served as a roadmap to the Data Cloud adoption, which took roughly six months. After preparing the data model and architecture, Data Cloud was seamlessly integrated into Fazer’s existing processes by leveraging best practices, out-of-the-box connectors, and API integrations, ensuring a smooth implementation. 

“During the project, business participation was important for success. We worked as a team on a project where our knowledge and understanding grew together. As we prioritised the key Data Cloud use cases, it helped the business understand and participate in the implementation itself,” Yrjölä adds. 

“Executing Data Cloud this way was a breeze. This approach is something I would recommend to anyone considering Data Cloud. Of course, there is always something you can’t anticipate, but we could solve things quickly with Fluido. We got everything up and running and launched on time,” Rowlinson says and continues:  

“Fluido is our main partner for all things Salesforce, and the project went extremely well with them. Fluido’s team was excellent: it consisted of knowledgeable and problem-solving people that were a pleasure to work with.“ 

Consistent consumer experience at scale  

Over a hundred years Fazer has had its finger on the pulse of their customers. Now with Data Cloud, they have a comprehensive solution for managing customer data in their marketing activities. 

“We have achieved our targets: we now have the complete view of the customers and can activate them in digital channels such as paid media and email marketing. We can also see the change in our business KPIs, such as decreased marketing spend,” Rowlinson says. 

Data Cloud now forms the “single source of truth” for marketing, allowing Fazer to use data to segment customers based on their transactional and behavioural data. As Data Cloud can combine data from different sources it supports more accurate segmentation. The enhanced segmentation is then used to create personalised marketing campaigns in all channels. 

“We managed to make the data available to marketers as planned. We gained the ability to create target audiences based on our data, which makes targeting more accurate and helps us to get better lookalike audiences, which reduces marketing costs in external media. At the moment we get significantly more with our budget, which means that the effectiveness has risen,” says Veera Herranen, Digital Development Manager at Fazer. 

Data Cloud also gives the marketeers the key to segment and optimise performance themselves: 

“Our team now has easy access to the customer data and creates audiences without having to bother with technical specialists for segmentation needs. Because of Data Cloud’s simple user interface, our marketers can see the different segments within the customer base and understand them better, consecutively making marketing all the more on-target,” says Rowlinson. 

“For anyone else thinking about this type of project, the key is to consider life after the implementation and prepare for change. How do you train your team for the new skills, roles, and responsibilities? How do you get your team to use the tool actively, and what kind of governance model do you need? So it doesn’t just become a one-off project,” Rowlinson advises. 

Discover how Fazer built the MyFazer Community to transform customer loyalty and drive sales.