The Brief

This campaign comes from the paddle fields of northern Thailand, and the world of insecticides.

Creative Execution

In keeping with the traditions and rituals that Thai farmers observe around the growing and harvesting of rice, we developed a series of events that would introduce Eforia as a positive blessing for their rice growing season. This involved a traditional rice-sapling blessing ceremony, explanations of how the brand worked, donations to the local temple, as well as entertainments and invitations to sample our insecticide.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Rice farmers of Thailand rarely thought about their brand choice of insecticides – the main insecticide companies had tied up the influential trade and wholesalers to push their own brands. Farmers took whatever was recommended. This did not suit our client, Sygnenta whose Eforia insecticide brand was new in the market, but languishing through lack of sufficient trade support. In order to drive brand growth, we had to promote Eforia directly to the farmers. Conventional consumer marketing techniques such as TV advertising were not going to work simply because the farmers rarely watched TV!

Results

Over 7,000 farmers came to these events, called “Doing Good Deeds For Your Rice Sapling”. They brought their rice saplings to be blessed, and left with Eforia insecticide sample to try, associating the product with good fortune for the harvest ahead, a perception that was reinforced by the effective product performance.