WHERE'S THE NOODLE?!

Short List
TitleWHERE'S THE NOODLE?!
BrandPT. INDOFOOD SUKSES MAKMUR, TBK
Product / ServiceINDOMIE
CategoryI05. Cultural Insight
EntrantROMP. Jakarta, INDONESIA
Idea Creation ROMP. Jakarta, INDONESIA
Production GAMA PRATAMA Jakarta, INDONESIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Roy Wisnu romp. Chief Creative Officer
Afianto Makmun romp. Strategic Creative Lead
Okka Mahendra romp. Creative Group Head
Batara Bayu Soedarwanto romp. Art Director
Kahi Xu romp. Senior Art Director
Muhammad Gilang Putra romp. Copywriter
Isobel Delatorre romp. Business Lead
Theresia Sulistiowati romp. Business Lead
Indra Permadi romp. Associate Strategy Director
Athia Fadhlina romp. Senior Strategist
Octarin Sabita romp. Account Manager
Zahrathia Rahmanda romp. Senior Account Executive
Aulia Szavannah romp. Account Executive

Background

Indomie is Indonesia’s most beloved instant noodle brand. Despite its iconic and market leader status, Indomie continues to experience an annual dip in its sales during the holy month of Ramadan. The practice for Muslims to refrain from eating, a cluttered media landscape and the lack of strong association between Indomie and Ramadan eating occasions became contributing factors to this decline. These challenges were heightened further last year due to the unprecedented situation of COVID-19 Pandemic. The brief for this campaign was straightforward: Indomie wanted to capture people’s attention and create a reason for people to purchase the brand during Ramadan. From a business objective, the goal was to generate higher sales compared to last year. To achieve this, the campaign scope includes product packaging, purchasing points materials, digital and national television spots. Media budget for ATL is around 93% and 7% for digital platforms from all total media spent.

Describe the strategy

Our main audience for this campaign are Indonesian Muslims. Ramadan for them is a time for respect, kindness and greater community values. A qualitative review of Ramadan specific habits highlighted a growing disconnect between the behaviours of big businesses and ordinary Indonesians. One of the customs that is unique to Ramadan in Indonesia involves food establishments covering their stores and hiding their food to respect fasting Muslims. This is a contrast to the commercials seen on TV and mass media, where appetizing food can be found everywhere. Paying respect became the anchor to our approach. For the first time in the brand's history, we replaced the iconic noodles pictured in Indomie's packaging and communication with an image of an empty plate. The plate represents Indomie’s respect and support for fasting Muslims across Indonesia. Without saying too much, it communicated that Indomie understands the struggles of not eating during the day.

Describe the execution

We kicked off the campaign with a simple act of introducing the empty plate on the product packaging. With a simple line that states ‘Have a good fast’. Without any incentive whatsoever, Indonesians took pictures of the ‘empty plate’ packaging and shared it with their friends. Then, we kept the momentum going with two versions of an ad aired in nationwide television and digital spots. The copy that aired during fasting hours looked just like a regular Indomie ad. Upon closer inspection, the audience watching it will see that the actor is mimicking the act of cooking and eating Indomie - minus the actual image of the noodles. The product did not make a single appearance in the commercial. Once the sun sets, and Muslims have broken fast, the same commercial is again shown - this time with the appetizing noodle food shot that everyone is familiar with.

List the results

From a business point of view, Indomie achieved a 5% Y.O.Y increase compared to last year's Ramadan sales. This is a significant win for Indomie considering the overall decrease in Indonesia household consumption during last year’s festive period. Not only did the empty plate campaign result in double the awareness score compared to last year’s effort, it also became Indomie's most recalled advertisement. This all contributed to a 4 percent point increase in consideration to buy Indomie during Ramadan. Being respectful and relevant to local culture also captured people’s attention. On digital, a picture of the Indomie special packaging circulated organically and when combined with the other campaign material, were able to generate 266% more impressions compared to last year’s Ramadan campaign. Our empty plate videos collected 17,529,325 views and 5,495,724 engagement rate, mainly on Facebook and Instagram. Various national news portals also covered the campaign organically.

Please tell us about the cultural insight that inspired the work

Ramadan in Indonesia is a time of worship, self-reflection but also greater community spirit. In this month, Muslims are encouraged to strengthen ties with family and friends, give more to charity and treat each other with more respect and kindness. This is evident in many customs that came to be synonymous with Ramadan. One of the customs that is unique to Ramadan in Indonesia are food establishments covering their stores and hiding their food to respect fasting Muslims. They do this usually by putting curtains on their doors and window displays so passing Muslims can’t see the people eating or serving food inside. But while we see businesses and communities try to respect those who are fasting by covering up food and window displays, we see the complete opposite behaviour demonstrated on TV and mass media - where food commercials and appetizing visuals can be seen aplenty.

Links

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