TURNING A COMMODITY INTO FRONT PAGE NEWS

TitleTURNING A COMMODITY INTO FRONT PAGE NEWS
BrandNATIONAL FOODS
Product / ServicePURA LIGHT START
CategoryA02. Best Use of Magazines/Newspapers
EntrantSTARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company:STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Media Agency:STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Credits

Name Company Position
David Trovell Starcom MediaVest Melbourne Strategy Director
Maree Cullum Starcom MediaVest Melbourne Investment Director
Tanya Lincke Starcom MediaVest Melbourne Investor

Results and Effectiveness

We delivered over three times our media investment by inventing advertising space that had never before been sold. Despite reduced media spend this year, sales rose 3.3% (11% in convenience stores); the instore promotion increased sales by 22% in these stores. A large online survey tracked consumer response. 55% of Age readers had actively read the guide in its first 4-weeks, of these, 80% found the content interesting. Our brand recall was over 80% and 50% of readers said the guide made PLS seem different to other milk brands. The guide increased PLS’s intention to purchase by 15%.

Creative Execution

We created “The Good Life Guide” to weekend activities, and launched it on the front page of The Melbourne Age, a first for the category. We then created a media-first “page 3 spinal wrap” that ran every Friday for 7-weeks. This wrapped the guide within the paper from page 3 to the weather section ensuring standout at a fraction of the cost. To ensure relevance, we disrupted weather information, as Melbourne weekend planning revolves around the weather! We turned all weather content Pura yellow, including the front page summary on both the newspaper and The Age website. We sponsored the evening weather and commissioned TV vignettes featuring Channel Nine’s weatherman trying out activities in that week’s guide. And we made the Good Life Guide unmissable in store, offering Friday’s newspaper free with every pack purchased, the first time the milk category had gained such great off-location display.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Previous advertising for Pura Light Start had produced little return; we had one last chance to save the brand The barrier was lack of differentiation. Our objective was to differentiate and increase intention to purchase by 10%. People think low-fat milks are identical. The average purchase takes 3 seconds and most consumers can’t name the brand in their fridge. We had to link milk to something they cared deeply about to break this ‘auto pilot’ purchase behaviour. Our audience look for low-fat brands to complement their healthy lifestyle, but don’t think of milk as an enabler of this vitality. We needed to force this association and disrupt on a mass scale. Rather than simply using health environments, we made this commodity purchase Front Page News. We inspired people to make the most out of their weekend using Melbourne’s largest newspaper, literally turning active health inspiration into front page news.