The Campaign

GSK utilizes expert’s endorsement as a long lasting trigger for brand health, and it is already proven worldwide that this endorsement drives business growth. GSK has a dedicated dental detailing (visiting) team that covers 36 key cities. But that’s only 6% of cities in China! The challenge is that to rapidly expand the number and geographic coverage of dentists by GSK’s dental detailing team through manpower alone would be both expensive and slow to implement. Furthermore, GSK representatives can only visit existing dentists on average once/quarter, and even then dentists are usually too busy to have a deep conversation with them! Our research shows that dentists are always seeking knowledge such as industry trends, latest technology and case sharing, with most of them using WeChat. So we built a WeChat account named SHI KE YA YI HUI (GSK Dentists Community) to potentially interface with every Chinese dentist! Within a year we’ve recruited over 27,000 high quality followers, so an increase of 108% from current, so reaching almost 20% of registered dentists in China. With an average of 18 connects per year – a 450% increase!

The Brief

Our target audience is hard to reach and difficult to influence segment - expert dentists. The goal is to first find a more cost-efficient way for GSK to recruit many more un-reached dentists; and then provide an easy and effective way for GSK to engage these dentists in dialogue with GSK and among themselves at a higher frequency, which will contribute to GSK's goal of being top of mind and most recommended Oralcare brand among dentists in China. Which will ultimately add to the growth of sales of GSK Oralcare products.

Creative Execution

Firstly we built the WeChat account based on the research findings, positioned as a considerate assistant to the professionals. It is a branded account and a platform where latest industry news and GSK brand information are provided, alongside selected views from dentists are discussed and published. To strengthen quality of the content, a long term cooperation with a professional vertical site was negotiated. Secondly, to ensure quality of the followers, the account is promoted offline by GSK dental detailing team reps in their visit to dentists, by printed materials with the account QR code or an easy tweet from the reps’ WeChat account. Our regular ads on professional magazines, online vertical channels are also leveraged with the account QR code put alongside. Finally to further arouse interaction and WOM, views and questions from dentists are gathered daily, with selected ones re-tweeted and popular ones used for open discussion via WeChat.

Within a year we’ve recruited over 27,000 high quality followers, so an increase of 108% from current, so reaching almost 20% of registered dentists in China from top tier to low tier cities. With an average of 18 connects per year this is a 450% increase! Many of these were never reached or talked to by GSK before! This GSK WeChat platform was very cost-efficient in engaging professional dentists to engage with GSK at less than 75RMB to recruit or less than 4RMB per contact! From Millward Brown tracking report, significant recommendation differences in behavior between followed & un-followed dentists are found: - Dentist recommendation frequency of Polident & Parodontax increased by 200% & 65%. - Dentist recommendation rate of Parodontax & Polident increased by 31% & 23% - Share of recommendation rate of Sensodyne increased by 13%. And we all listen to what our dentist says!

Following quantitative and qualitative researches amongst dentists it was tailor-made to ensure positioning and content design of the platform was built upon their real needs and habits. It also had to be a semi-open platform where comments and discussions are built upon as we discovered that updated industry information and exchange of views among peers are deeply appreciated with high frequency among dentists. We also validated that dentists are usually too busy to have a decent time on professional meeting or reading in their daily work lives, so they needed something on hand in their fragmented breaks. Which is why the solution needed to be mobile! Therefore, a WeChat account (Ding Yue Hao) on mobile under name of GSK, positioned as an assistant to facilitate work of dentists is set up, filled with latest industrial news, selected views from dentists, and GSK brand info.