The Campaign

For many years Horlicks Malaysia had been in a lopsided fight against a dominant competitor in the child nutrition category. While equipped with demonstrably better nutrition credentials (23 vital nutrients vs. the competitor’s 12), Horlicks hadn’t been winning mothers with its functional messaging. So in 2014, Horlicks decided to change the conversation – to champion a cause far beyond ingredients, namely, "nourishing the world’s potential." From a pilot project in an isolated village in Malaysia where children lacked access to education, Horlicks developed a highly involving, digital-centric campaign. The brand’s efforts to bring 32 kids their first taste of school proved engaging enough to be seen by more folks than the total population of Malaysia, and relevant enough to drive a 22% sales increase.

The Brief

To change the conversation, from functional messaging about nutrition to an emotionally involving, broadly engaging story about helping fulfil children’s potential. Horlicks aimed to link its brand to the larger theme of education, since children's academic success is important not just to every mother but to the development of society in general. Ideally, then, this project would develop highly involving content that, showcased in Horlicks’ digital and social channels, would help build popularity for both the brand and its purpose.

Creative Execution

The Kampung Chuweh project showed the brand and its products in a totally different light: living up to a worthy cause and driving real change. Horlicks Malaysia initiated and operated the entire project on the ground, building a school-prep center, hiring a specialist to groom village kids for the first school experience, even securing a boat for their journey. The backstory to the project, branded documentary videos in multiple episodes, social media posts and regular updates, media events, banners that dramatized the barriers to a smooth home-to-school journey – all these elements assured a constant flow of meaningful, interesting and engaging content. The theme of education was ever-present, linked to the Horlicks brand and its products (whose advertising, by the way, is built on the premise that kids want to grow “taller, stronger and sharper”). Meaning: the project’s roots in both brand purpose and product benefit gave it authority to act.

First, and most importantly, the 32 kids of Kampung Chuweh have now gotten their first taste of school. And despite very low paid-media investment, nearly 37 million other folks have seen, read about and/or shared the project and its campaign (Oct14 to Feb15) – more than the entire population of Malaysia. The content strategy clearly paid off: the website saw a jump in visits of +2147% after re-launch, with over 38% of all visits attracted by project-related content. The engagement rates with this content illustrate its power: organic reach of a single post 9.2% versus the average of 2-3%. But most importantly: in conjunction with product campaigning this entirely new Horlicks story not only linked the brand to education and made the brand tangible, it yielded solid business results. For the first time in years volumes sales grew an impressive 22% year on year.

Horlicks had learned that around the world 57 million kids have limited or no access to education, and consequently launched the School Journey Initiative with the goal of to helping kids get to school faster and safer. The next step was to pilot this project in Malaysia. We identified Kampung Chuweh, an isolated village where 32 children had no access to school, and began working with the Malaysian Association of Social Workers to make a tangible difference on the ground. The plan was to document all the on-ground efforts, in phases, and share this out to Horlicks’ owned channels. To push awareness, limited paid online media would highlight both the issue and the story behind Horlicks’ efforts. All this would complement coverage by invited press reps.