The Campaign

Prosperity has changed the modern Taiwanese diet – with rice deserted in favour of a more international diet. Great news for Taiwanese diners. Terrible news for the Taiwanese economy! Domestic rice supply now exceeds demand and over 20% of rice paddies sat idle in 2010: an area equal in size to Manhattan. A brief to “stimulate rice consumption” and a modest campaign budget, saw the agency uncover two unexpected insights into why Taiwanese had deserted rice. Addressing these new findings head-on was central to a successful PR-led integrated campaign that delivered the largest increase in national rice consumption in a decade. With 21 million MORE kilos of rice consumed in 2011 = US$33million in GDP, this is an ROI of 99 times campaign investment in the first year.

The Brief

Halt the decline in rice consumption in 2011 and sow the seeds for an ambitious aim of future growth in consumption in 2012-2013. In the tough Taiwan budgetary climate of 2010, this national campaign was under-funded at US$370,000. We judged that the category norm of recipe ideas would have the impact of a ‘drop in the ocean’ against this national dietary trend and therefore, we needed to make $370,000 work like $3million.

Results

• Rice Consumption’s Greatest Rebound in a Decade Rice consumption per person increased from 46.18kg in 2010 to 47.09kg/per person annually in 2011, an extra 21 million kilos of rice contributed an additional US$32.6 million to Taiwanese GDP (source: Taiwan Council of Agriculture), improving employment and output for the Taiwanese agriculture sector. • Our campaign encouraged local governments to get behind the movement with their own rice promotion events. • Ad testing supported the behaviour change with 70% of viewers wanting to eat more rice and restaurants in our ‘Top 100’ rice competition reported sales increases of 30-40%, primarily from sales of their featured rice dishes (Source: agency interviews). • Media outreach resulted in 345 pieces of coverage across TV, radio, social media, newspapers and even extended into fashion and beauty – media that do not normally feature food stories beyond recipes. TV coverage alone reached over 1.2 million people.

Execution

• Three low cost TVC’s, each one reflecting the most common myths heard in research groups, were created for maximum reach. Messages were developed with a consultant nutritionist and pre-tested • National social media-based search for Taiwan’s “Top 100 restaurants” with contemporary, innovative rice dishes. A dedicated website supported partnerships with Yahoo! (Taiwan’s largest search platform) and Ipeen (most popular dining website) for young urban gourmets to share and recommend outstanding rice dishes at restaurants all over Taiwan. Media relations promoted the Top 100 rice dishes and the restaurants that created them to get our audience nominating restaurants, voting for the most appealing rice dishes or visiting the restaurants recommended.

The Situation

Taiwan has one of the lowest rice consumption levels in Asia at 46.18kg/person annually compared to Japan at 58.5kg and South Korea at almost 100kg (Source: US Dept of Agriculture). Increasing rice consumption reduces reliance on imported foods (which helps reduce Taiwanese national debt) and revives idle farmlands (which reduces domestic unemployment in agriculture). In our view, the only way to fight a 20 year decline was to find new insights into WHY consumers were abandoning rice, address these concerns directly and reframe the role of rice in a modern Taiwanese diet.

The Strategy

Rice needed its biggest image makeover ever. And correcting dietary misinformation first was essential or any further messaging would be irrelevant. We developed two communication strategies: “Rice is just not trendy” Our target audience of urban professionals 18-40 years was proud of their cosmopolitan dining habits and sought out perceived trendy and creative new cuisines. Rice felt like the ‘poor cousin’ to them — a boring, traditional and unfashionable choice of their parents. “We can’t eat rice, we’re dieting” Women felt that eating rice causes weight gain and makes you feel sluggish. Nielsen data revealed 66% of Taiwanese claim to be “on a diet” (Q1, 2011), one of the highest rates in the world, and 55% said eating rice causes weight gain (Source: Taiwanese Diet Survey 2010).