Results and Effectiveness

Sales of coffee mix category in Q4 2012 were 14% higher than 2011 sales. Nescafe's activity was the key driver of this category growth at that period. The market share gap between Nescafe and Old Town was just 4%, compared with the previous market share that Nescafe had only half the market share of Old Town. The redemption rate for the newspaper cash coupons was higher than for any previous promotion by Nescafe, and the lucky draw contest to win a diamond generated almost 5 times the number of entries of previous tactical campaigns.

Creative Execution

One of HK's free morning dailies, Sky Post, was selected for the sample stick-on campaign. This title was cost-efficient to partner with, and allowed us to tailor the distribution of samples to include the places we wanted. On November 13, 2012 sample packs of Nescafe Premium White Coffee were stuck on to the front pages of 72,000 copies of Sky Post. With a white-collar target audience of the brand, these special editions of the paper were only made available at 37 strategic distribution points across HK. In additional to the sampling, and the accompanying HK$5 newspaper cash coupons to encourage purchase, Nescafe also ran a full-page newspaper ad promoting a lucky draw.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Nescafe Premium White Coffee was playing second fiddle to market leader Old Town in 2012, which had almost double the market share of Nescafe. A consumer survey found brand perception of Nescafe Premium White Coffee was quite low comarped to the competition. In Q4 2012, the objectives was to increase market share and competitiveness. To do this, the brand needed to recruit new coffee drinkers, get existing coffee drinkers to consume more frequently, and encourage current coffee drinkers to trade up to a more premium product - Nescafe. ONE touchpoint, according to internal survey, stood out significantly to affect consumer decision-making in coffee category : samples sent to target audiences' hands. We decided on a market-first give-away system that not only created a media first for print advertising in HK, but also chimed perfectly with ritual of making a morning cup of coffee.