Background

Christmas is a make-or-break season for Lady’s Choice (LC), accounting for 36% of annual sales. For years, the brand has relied on its signature dish, the creamy macaroni salad, to inspire Filipino moms to add an LC dish to their holiday season menu. However, Q4 household penetration for LC has softened and preference for macaroni salad during Christmastime has been waning over the years. A plateau during the brand’s only peak season is a growth bottleneck that LC simply could not afford! Our challenge was two-pronged: we needed to reinvigorate interest in our signature dish to ensure relevance, and drive sales for our product in the immediate future to turbo-charge business growth

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

The First-Ever Shoppable Cooking Show - an influencer-led PR activation that puts a modern spin to the traditional cooking show by broadcasting it live and allowing viewers to instantly buy the ingredients of the recipe being prepared.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The brand’s target audience are the gatekeepers of the Filipino kitchen: moms. Food is their language of love and Christmastime is the ultimate showcase of that love in the form of her incredible holiday spread. To unlock unprecedented growth for LC, we sought to bridge the gap between traditional PR and commerce by activating on the following channels: Facebook was identified as our campaign’s main hub, which will drive reach and conversions for LC’s Christmas campaign. Instagram was identified as a secondary reach and engagement driver, which is the platform of choice for many mommy influencers, and we wanted to activate these moms’ communities where they are strongest. To enable our audience to experience cooking and tasting our signature macaroni salad recipes with their favorite mom influencers, we set-up a on-ground event for key influencers and a live online event that was made accessible to the public.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

A few weeks before Christmas, LC invited editors from digital media platforms, Mom Influencers, and Online Mom Community Leaders to an event, hosted by the iconic Kris Aquino. Attendees were provided with the same ingredients and equipment that the host had on stage. As she prepared her version of our signature macaroni salad, attendees could cook and taste along with her. While watching the cooking show, viewers can comment #CreamyMayoChristmas on any post in LC’s FB page, and a Social Commerce Chatbot will be triggered, giving viewers a chance to purchase our Christmas bundle right within Facebook itself. But the campaign didn’t end when the live cooking show ended. Influencers remarketed to viewers, allowing them to purchase their macaroni salad kits. Influencer stories documenting the event became a digital store-front for LC, where online audiences were able to click a swipe-up function that triggered our bot where they can order.

List the results (30% of vote)

Reach and Engagement Impact: - The PR Value returned was worth Php 5.7 million (USD 112k), which amounted to 7x our initial investment. - Our live event was the most viewed brand-led Facebook Live effort ever for Unilever Philippines at 2.8k viewers. - Purchase Intent: 6% click-to-conversion rate, more than doubling the 2.8% Unilever benchmark - Successful Sales: 4% social commerce conversion rate, doubling the 2% e-commerce conversion rate for Unilever Business Impact: - We reversed the previous year’s decline, with LC mayonnaise growing by +830bps (8.3%) in Q4 2019 vs Q4 2018 (-1.8%) - This contributed to our highest overall Q4 brand growth in 3 years (7.3%) - Moreover, we drove the entire mayonnaise category’s growth during the campaign period. All competitors were either flat or declining in market share, while we grew +80 bps. - 598% e-commerce growth in Q4 2019, achieving 18x higher growth versus previous year.