The Campaign

Our objective was to help our target audience to live healthier lives. Soon we realized that making an impact in this sphere had to be achieved through actually doing something rather than launching an image campaign. We had to actively help and contribute. Looking into data, we found that while living a healthy life and eating healthy food became increasingly important to Chinese people, the personal health literacy & knowledge of nutrition, health and wellness was low. While over 65% of Chinese considered living a healthy life was important to them, a survey showed that only 11% of all Chinese had significant knowledge within this field. We knew Nestlé could make a difference here: Nestlé leveraged its unmatched expert knowledge by launching the world’s first smart home AI nutrition assistant, responding to the unsatiated appetite of Chinese for nutrition, health and wellness information.

Execution

XiaoAi is the world’s first smart home nutrition assistant capable of answering questions about health, nutrition and wellness. To create XiaoAI, we teamed up with China’s biggest smart home device developer DingDong and Nestlé’s nutrition experts and created thousands of the most frequently asked questions about nutrition, health and wellness. These questions and their corresponding answers were uploaded into the cloud of all 1,000,000 already sold devices. Next, we developed a Nestlé packaged and branded edition of the device, that was sold on JD.com. Another vital part was the highly successful launch of XiaoAi, wherein we invited press from across the country to the launch event. Being the first food & beverage company to tread new ground in AI, we secured media coverage in mainstream media, tech magazines and food & beverage related media. In addition to the press conference, we introduced XiaoAi to a wider audience through our OTV.

Being the first food & beverage company to tread ground in AI, the Nestlé XiaoAi launch conference excelled with an attendance rate of 85% (industry average 70%) and a coverage rate of 83% (industry average 60%). 76% of the attending media published the news within 24 hours. The campaign created 84 million impressions, with an engagement rate of 4x the set KPI (659,804). 70% of campaign-related buzz posts were positive. In a survey carried out with Nestlé XiaoAi device owners, 93% claimed that it had helped to significantly or somewhat improve Nestlé’s image as a Nutrition, Health and Wellness expert. Additionally, social listening revealed that associations between Nestle and "nutrition" or "health" increased 24x during the campaign period. The Nestlé-branded XiaoAi sold out in most cities within days and users were highly engaged, with 30% using the device more than 200 times in a 10-week period.

The Situation

In a very competitive environment with local brands attacking Nestlé, and with limited budgets, Nestlé China successfully leveraged the growing excitement around smart home devices by developing the world’s first smart home nutrition assistant. Nestlé XiaoAi breaks new ground in how brands are using the possibilities that come with this new technology. It has helped Nestlé China to significantly improve its image as a brand that contributes to better nutrition, health and wellness, and has maintained Nestlé’s distance from local competitor brands by building on a wave of excitement around Artificial Intelligence in a brand-relevant way.

The Strategy

Nestlé’s target audience had become increasingly conscious about health and nutrition: Over 65% of Chinese surveyed considered living a healthy life important. By 2020, 53% of all consumption will be generated by people under 35 years old. And it’s a different generation: 26% having purchased smart home devices, and 96 % having shown interest. In order to achieve scale, we decided to team up with DingDong. With over 1,000,000 devices already sold, we could build on their profound customer base. Another essential part was the highly successful launch of XiaoAi on JD.com, wherein we invited press from across the country to the launch conference. Being the first food & beverage company treading new ground in AI, we secured media coverage from mainstream media, tech magazines and food & beverage related media.