UHP FIRST STEP TO LIVELIHOOD

TitleUHP FIRST STEP TO LIVELIHOOD
BrandUNITED LABORATORIES
Product / ServiceUNITED HOME PRODUCTS
CategoryA03. Best Use of Live Events and/or Celebrity Endorsement
EntrantSTARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP PHILIPPINES Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES
Entrant Company STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP PHILIPPINES Makati City, THE PHILIPPINES
Media Agency 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

The Campaign

How do you convince the average Filipino mom to buy healthcare products for her family when she struggles to buy food with her meager household budget? In the past, UHP has always done traditional broadcast advertising, not understanding why the consumers don’t buy the products. In terms of communication, UHP has always prioritized brand awareness but failed to show its relevance to the lives of the consumers. Hence, UHP has been in the regional community, but not seen as part of the community. UHP needed to stand out from generic healthcare by adding value to the mom’s role as homemaker (beyond cheap healthcare products and medicines); providing her with training, resources and putting her in a better financial position to provide better healthcare for her family. UHP needed to create brand value amongst these moms by raising their value as homemakers. Our mission was to help the community uplift their dignity and dream of a better life to build a long-lasting relationship with these consumers. Getting Filipino moms to buy UHP was our task, helping them better their lives became our priority. As we achieved business success, we improved the livelihoods of moms - winning their love and respect (and business) for the long run.

The Brief

99.6% of the provinces in the Philippines is composed of middle-lower class families. These families earned an average household monthly income of US$ 115 to US$ 172 to support an average family size of four. As their agency, we needed to look beyond the numbers. We stepped out of our four walls and immersed through a day-to-day shadowing to live in our consumers’ reality. We were respectful and sensitive to their experiences to gain their trust. It was within a safe environment where they shared with us their hopes, dreams and fears.

Results

Awareness improved from 93% to 100%. UHP as “brand recommended by family” improved from 34% to 52% and as “brand recommended by friends” improved from 36% to 54%. With the program's social impact of promoting livelihood, it was featured at no cost in local TV Patrol (top local news program). We built a network of moms from ground-up, with 700 moms in 3 months. 96% applied the skills learnt, 53% became income-generating entrepreneurs. The program became the content that built inspiration and continuous conversation. We formed a new distribution channel through leveraging on the network of moms as resellers and partnerships with the community drugstores to encourage demand for brand. P12months trial increased from 2% to 4% in 2012. Conversion increased from 3% to 5% in 2012. Even with the absence of media, conversion of non-users drove sales growth, from 18% to 85% in Mindanao, 18% to 154% in Visayas.

Execution

The community outreach program, “Unang Hakbang Pangkabuhayan” (First Step to Livelihood) elevated moms to value providers as it gave them skills (like massage therapy and soap making) and resources (raw materials indigenous to the region) to create a start-up business. The income empowered them to take better care of their families and concern themselves beyond the basic necessities. We knew that generics and herbals were preferred not just because they were cheaper, but they were advocated by people they trust. Our mission then was to inspire and create UHP advocates within the communities who organically endorsed UHP as their brand of choice. Incentives were given to mothers who promoted the program within their community. The strength of the campaign lied in the relatable and authentic endorsements of the new brand advocates who became our link to the grassroots. A specific resource person was embedded into each province for continual support.

The Situation

For 30 years, the challenge for United Home Products (UHP), a low-cost branded healthcare line, was to sell to the low-income provinces in the Philippines. This was a market where herbals and generics were more readily available and preferred. This time, UHP was poised to shift its perception from an absent brand to the brand of choice to the common Filipino family. The challenge was to increase trial which stood at only 3% and not just awareness (which was healthy at 70%). This was a daunting task for media as UHP had a limited budget at PhP1 million.

The Strategy

We’ve learned that 75% of these households are ran and managed by housewives without steady income. Thus, UHP was not just competing with generics and herbals, but with the market’s purchasing power. However, we understood that these moms also dreamt of providing better healthcare for their families. Each of their peso carried with it their sense of pride and dignity to be able to provide for their families. But they have to cram everything they need in their meager incomes, which results to some aspects of the household needs being compromised. Healthcare became a lip service. Our idea transcended UHP from being a low-priced branded alternative to generics to actually creating value providers - By providing them with a new livelihood, by increasing their purchasing power, by making them dream bigger. The training and resources placed them in a better financial position to provide better healthcare for their families.