UHP FIRST STEP TO LIVELIHOOD

TitleUHP FIRST STEP TO LIVELIHOOD
BrandUNITED LABORATORIES
Product / ServiceUNITED HOME PRODUCTS
CategoryA06. Best Use of Special Events And Stunt/Live Advertising
EntrantSTARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP PHILIPPINES Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES
Media Agency STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP PHILIPPINES Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES
Entrant Company STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP PHILIPPINES Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES
Media Agency 2 STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP PHILIPPINES Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES

Credits

Name Company Position
Pamela Figueroa Starcom Mediavest Group Media Planner/Buyer
Krizia Guingon Starcom Mediavest Group Senior Media Planner/Buyer
Clarissa Dela Paz Starcom Mediavest Group Media Manager
Christine Te Starcom Mediavest Group Senior Media Manager
Hope Binay Starcom Mediavest Group Associate Media Director
Veron Agustin Starcom Mediavest Group Media Director
Rajesh Mahtani Starcom Mediavest Group Head/Strategy/Growth/Southeast Asia
Joanna Mojica-Chan Starcom Mediavest Group Chief Executive Officer

Results and Effectiveness

The results were life-changing! We built an empowered community which tripled from 200 to 700. 76% felt that UHP helped them become self-sufficient. 96% applied the skills learnt and 53% became income-generating entrepreneurs. This gave birth to brand advocates (56% love the brand) who converted non-users driving organic sales growth from 18%-85% in Mindanao, 18%-154% in Visayas. Most importantly, we improved their livelihood, winning their love and respect for the long run. Instead of spending on advertising, we invested on people. The value generated from the effect to the consumers plus media pick-ups were well-worth more than our 1million investment.

Creative Execution

We created a grassroots community outreach program, called “Unang Hakbang Pangkabuhayan”, which meant “First Step to Livelihood.” Our program armed moms with skills (like massage therapy and soap making) and resources (raw materials indigenous to the region in which they lived) to create a start-up business. From the income that they now generated, they would be able to take better care of their families and concern themselves beyond the basic necessities. We also established incentives that offered additional business resources for mothers who promoted the program within their community. And we embedded a specific resource person into each province for continual support. A new distribution channel was formed leveraging on the network of moms as resellers and partnerships with the community drugstores to encourage demand for brand. Our program proved to be meaningful to the community as seen from the support of local government and media.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

How do you convince the average Filipino mom to buy a line of healthcare products for her family when she struggles to buy food with her meager household budget? United Home Products (UHP), specializing in low cost vitamins, supplements and ointments, faced the challenge of selling its products to the poorest provinces in the Philippines. UHP’s targeted households earned US$ 1,500 to US$ 4,700 yearly to support an average family size of four. Three-quarters of those who ran the households and managed the budgets were housewives without any steady income stream. We realized we needed to help UHP stand out from generic healthcare by adding value to the mom’s role as a homemaker; providing her with training, resources and putting her in a better financial position to provide better healthcare for her family.