2008 Gold Effie Winner. It s Time for Real

Transcription

1 2008 Gold Effie Winner It s Time for Real Category: Package Food Brand: Hellman s Client: Unilever Primary Agency: Ogilvy and Mather Media Agency: MindShare Strategic Challenge Our strategic communications challenge was to drive step change growth for a mature brand in a low-involvement category with flat to declining scales. To do so, we had to move beyond a product versatility message and confront the reality that 50+% of consumers perceived mayo, and Hellmann s, as unhealthy: processed fat in a jar. We had to tackle this negative health perception and re-contextualize mayo within today s modern diet. We needed to find a way to give consumers permission to enjoy the brand they love. The answer to this was simple tell consumers that Hellmann s is actually not unhealthy because it is made with good stuff like eggs, oil and vinegar. We needed to convince people that Hellmann s is uncomplicated, simple, real food. To get consumers to listen, we had to find novel ways to engage them with our message. Objectives 1) Drive step change growth by increasing share +3.2%. 2) Significantly shift perceptions of mayo from unhealthy to something people can feel good about eating. 3) Increase efficiency of limited media buy that outperforms expected Unilever Food ROI norms. 4) Create and lead a dialogue about real food.

2 The Big Idea HELLMANN S IS REAL FOOD. It s an idea that emerged from a product truth. Hellmann s is made with eggs, oil and vinegar simple food you can find in a kitchen, rather than a lab. This fact was a surprise to the majority of consumers who were unaware of the actual ingredients in mayonnaise. We learned from case studies on butter and milk that if people knew something was made with simple, honest, REAL ingredients, they would feel better about eating it -- even if they knew if it had some fat. Hellmann s didn t need to be (nor could we credibly be) wheat grass with gingko biloba healthy. We just couldn t be processed fat in a jar unhealthy. This simple ingredients story would be the wedge required to change the negative perceptions around the product. To bring relevancy back to the brand required alignment with the larger food movement happening in America. The idea that Hellmann s should stand for Real Food intersected with a larger cultural truth. We observed that a groundswell of consumers yearned for authentic experiences. And they were beginning to reject fake people (the Paris Hilton s of the world), as a reaction to the overly complicated, celebrity-driven popular culture in America. When it came to food, consumers had been moving away from artificial, processed foods in favor of real, simple and healthy foods over the last decade. Brands like Whole Foods gained widespread popularity. The number of farmers markets in America more than doubled since 1994 (source: USDA). Aligning Hellmann s with this food movement was simple once we realized the brand s inherent equity was in Real from its longstanding use of the world Real on packaging down to the product name (Hellmann s Real Mayonnaise). If the brand always stood for Real, why shouldn t it now? Confident in our credentials grounded in product and brand truths we were ready to move the brand forward as an advocate for Real Food. The final breakthrough came when consumers confirmed our belief that Real Food was a powerful idea. In all of our conversations with consumers, it became clear that saying something was real food invariably provoked a response. Initially, we meant the realness of the physical ingredients but people quickly and without prompting went to other, more emotional connotations around Real that weren t necessarily connected to ingredients. Such responses to what is real food? included: Real food is something I make with my kids. Real food is when I peel potatoes with my brother at every Thanksgiving for Mom s famous mashed potatoes. Hellmann s now had an idea that was on-brand, on-trend and resonated powerfully with consumers. We now had a compelling space from which to invite people to think about Hellmann s a bit differently. The tagline that came out of this thinking: It s Time For Real

3 Bringing the Idea to Life Defying the conventional consumer packaged goods model, traditional advertising supported a larger interactive communications program. Print and broadcast were designed to deliver product news (simple ingredients), and to drive consumers to a more engaging brand experience on the web. This approach allowed Hellmann s to move beyond the space where traditional packaged goods live. The web also gave us a platform to build a dialogue around Real Food. Here the brand could create an environment of two-way communication between brand and consumer that traditional advertising lacked. In this case, we wanted consumers to be able to participate in a dialogue with the brand and shape their own experience around Real Food. Before we could drive this dialogue, we needed to give people a reason to get involved. The key, we felt, lay in entertainment. If we could meaningfully entertain our audience, we could advance our brand goals much more quickly and effectively. The result was the very first branded content program for a food brand In Search of Real Food. Created as a broadband show on Yahoo! Food, the format of the show was quite simple. We sent chef Dave Lieberman, a likeable, charismatic, real guy from the Food Network on the road in search of real food people, places, stories and recipes. The resulting episodes appeared in groups of 3-4 each week for 12 weeks as content on Yahoo! Food. The content came in the form of entertaining food stories as well as relevant and useful food tips and recipes. Branded content also allowed us to re-situate mayo in a healthier food context in a more sustained way than advertising could do on its own. For example, all recipes that Dave made not only used Hellmann s but also focused on fresh, healthy ingredients or on healthier twists of traditional host foods (ie sandwiches on whole wheat bread with olives and bean sprouts). However, in order to work as entertainment and get the kind of engagement and dialogue we were after, In Search of Real Food could not have the appearance of a really long mayo commercial. It needed to amplify the efforts of the advertising without compromising the entertainment value of the content. To achieve this balance throughout the program the brand presence was limited to: Cooking segments using Hellmann s Subtle branding in the web environment Most segments ended with It s Time For Real tagline, but did not have a Hellmann s logo The Yahoo! Environment also provided additional points of engagement that we simply would not have had in a traditional broadcast format: Yahoo! Food groups serve as an online conversation forum for thousands of Real Food visitors Host Dave Lieberman s In Search of Real Food blog Real Food recipe section where visitors share or download recipes Yahoo! Answers section allows visitors to either ask or respond to questions on the topic of Real Food

4 Communications Touch Points TV Spots Branded Content Sponsorship Product placement Radio Spots Merchandising Program/content Print Trade/Professional Newspaper Consumer Magazine Print partnership Direct Mail PR Events Packaging Product Design Cinema Interactive Online Ads Web site Viral video Video skins/bugs Social Networking sites Podcasts Gaming Mobile Phone Other OOH Airport Transit Billboard Place Based Other Trade Shows Sponsorship Retail Experience POP Video In-Store Merchandizing Sales Promotion Retailtainment Guerrilla Street Teams Tagging Wraps Buzz Marketing Ambient Media Sampling/Trial Consumer Involvement WOM Consumer Generated Viral Other Blogs, Yahoo! Anwsers, Yahoo Food Group Additional Marketing Components: Pricing Kits Reach: National Total Media Expenditure: $10-20 Million Results 1) The campaign more than doubled the year-to-date (YTD) sales growth goal. o The original benchmark for the campaign was YTD sales growth of +3.2%. Hellmann's/Best Foods shattered this expectation, as the brand achieved YTD sales growth of +7.6% sales for (source: Nielsen) o These enormous gains were made in the face of declining sales of the next largest competitor (Kraft = Miracle Whip and Kraft Mayonnaise). *Market share based on sales volumes: Hellmann s 43%, Kraft 38% (source: Nielsen)

5 2) The campaign dramatically shifted perceptions of a very established brand. o o - The brand experienced lift in key metrics around consumer perceptions of health : (source: Millward Brown) 80% increase in those who agreed that Hellmann s Is made with real and simple ingredients 295% increase in those who agreed that Hellmann s Contributes to healthy eating - Hellmann's 2007 TV campaign consists of a mix of :15s and :30s supported primarily by 60 TRPs per week which is low for a new campaign. Millward Brown Tracker Q As a testament to the fundamental shift inspired by the campaign, 44% agreed that Hellmann s new brand communication, Makes you think about mayonnaise in a different way. (source: Millward Brown) 3) The campaign paid for itself with unprecedented campaign ROI shattering previous alltime high marks across all Unilever food brands.

6 - For every $1.00 of media spent, Hellmann s received $2.50 gain in incremental revenue, resulting in a record-setting all-outlet ROI of 250%. (source: client data) - We received ROI s last week on the TV, Print and In Search of Real Food and broke Unilever historical food records across the board. The highest scores ever in Food. Brian Orlando, Unilever client - Creating efficiencies across all media outlets (TV, print, interactive) was critical to success as Hellmann s is heavily outspent in traditional package good channels (eg TV). 4) The campaign succeeded in engaging its audience. a. The campaign over-delivered on engagement measures with over 767,000 unique visitors to the site more than 150% of the original volume target of 500,000 visitors. (source: Yahoo!) b. In just 13 weeks since inception, a large, passionate community around Real Food has sprung up: (source: Yahoo!) i. The In Search of Real Food group ranks in the top 1% of popularity within the groups found in General Foods Category of Yahoo! Groups. ii. For the Cooking & Recipes category, the In Search of Real Food group ranks in the top 2% in terms of popular membership. iii. In the case of official groups, In Search of Real Food community is the 3 rd largest trailing brands that have either been around several years longer or who have a much heavier media spend (Scion & Special K). c. The campaign over-delivered on expected performance measures in key consumer dialogue metrics: i. Over 20,000 video views on user-generated content sites like YouTube, MetaCafe and IMCooked (source: client data) ii. In the fourteen weeks since In Search of Real Food launched, there were over 10,000 search inquiries for Real Food on Yahoo!. The number of searches was 36 times greater than the same number of searches for Real Food in the twenty-five weeks leading up to the campaign launch. (source: Yahoo!)

7 d. The campaign made its way into popular culture through major editorial placements: i. The In Search of Real Food video & blog content was given 5 Yahoo.com frontpage editorial placements throughout the summer, exposing hundreds of thousands of Yahoo! users to the brand message. Editorial coverage is notable and difficult to achieve as it is: 1. Completely editorial; there is no pay for play 2. Only content structured to give users actionable information gets coverage (and In Search of Real Food did that) 3. Very selective; content from throughout the Yahoo! network (i.e. news, entertainment, sports, etc) must be covered daily. ii. The Wall Street Journal ran an article devoted to talking about the campaign and the brand (June 27, 2007) Anything else going on that might have helped drive results? The brand had included pricing impact based on elasticity modeling in determining its full year (FY) growth rate. Current expectation is that we will achieve 2x the original planned growth rate, which we believe can be mainly attributed to the impact of the campaign. Further data supports this belief (source: client data): - Pricing impact accounted for less than 10% of the total incremental dollar growth. - Dollar impact for all marketing efforts accounted for 90% of total incremental dollar growth. Price increases for competitor brands (Kraft increased their prices by roughly the same percentage as Hellmann s) did not translate into the same strong YTD sales growth as it did for Hellmann s (see chart in Result 1).