Why is this work relevant for PR?

It is our first experiential marketing campaign designed to resolve the misconceptions of pre-cooked rice such as endocrine disruptors and preservatives. This integrated promotion was conducted with a reassurance campaign called ‘The Story of Hetbahn: The More You Know About Us, The More You Can Rest Assured'. The total IMC programs from making a special kit, carrying out viral marketing (through media) before starting the campaign, promoting on Mom cafes, Instagram, YouTube, to working with affiliates offline, maximized the results of the campaign, which can be said it is relevant for PR.

Background

Even with the largest market share of 70%, some misconceptions needed to be resolved for Hetbahn as people often believed pre-cooked rice has endocrine disruptors and preservatives and is unsafe. With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading and a rapid increase in the number of single-person households, the demand for pre-cooked rice has also increased. Along with that, it seemed that the misconceptions about pre-cooked rice were causing concerns for people, and it needed to be resolved. We aimed to solidify our position as a leading food brand ensuring food safety, by reassuring our customers that Hetbahn could be consumed without any concerns. This led us to plan a creative and safe experiential campaign.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We tried to establish and implement a strategy in a macro perspective that allows consumers to change their thoughts about pre-cooked rather than emphasizing product strengths and a variety of product lines. To help consumers understand the story intuitively about the reassurance facts, we planned to create special items containing the ingredients used for the products. There are three items: "Safe PP Baby Bottle" to deliver the fact that the Hetbahn container is made from the same PP material as a baby bottle, and doesn't release endocrine disruptors at high temperatures; "Rice bran sunscreen" to demonstrate that Hetbahn has ingredients from rice bran that is to protect the rice; "UV sterilizer" to show that pre-cooked rice can be stored at room temperature almost for 9 months without any preservatives since it is produced in a sterilization room. Those items were able to deliver the reassuring messages to the consumers.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

For the campaign "The More You Know About Us, The More You Can Rest Assured', the key messages were set for two different types of consumers: ones who love the brand and consume Hetbahn often but without knowing about the reassuring facts of Hetbahn; the others who worry about the safety of instant rice, subsequently making them unable to consume Hetbahn without a sense of anxiety. We attempted to help consumers change their minds by providing them the experience of specially created products, enabling them to learn more about the brand with the reassuring story about Hetbahn and its intuitive items. All processes from making viral videos, to building a microsite, creating items and PR programs, were divided into four parts and each process was planned and executed with the planned budget.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

In order to help consumers easily understand and emphasize the facts, we created a 'Reassuring Product Kit' and 'Reassuring Box' containing three items specially made to deliver intuitive reassuring facts. The special kits were provided to 2,400 consumers. In order to generate consumers' interest, viral marketing was carried out on media before starting the campaign. Then, we released viral films for the reassuring campaign, launching microsites at the same time to get down to the campaign. The active Total IMC PR program in every direction - promoting online on Moms Cafes, Instagram, YouTube was carried out to maximize the results of the campaign. Partnering with KT Corporation, the largest telecommunications in South Korea, we also run a promotion offline which helped boost the marketing impact.

List the results (30% of vote)

The early promotion activities on various media were carried out for the campaign, along with the distribution of two planning articles and one press release. Releasing the total of 73 articles on media, it recorded 6,215 views for Mom café promotions with 343 comments, 5,787,149 views for Instagram, and YouTube with 5,616 comments. The reassurance campaign was exposed to 34,082,718 people and 6,626,031 consumers recognized Hetbahn’s reassuring facts with a total of 279,642 people who learned the reassuring facts based on the total exposure and viral marketing on September 13, 2021. It has gained remarkable results obtaining an amazing number of 469,994 accumulated visits to our microsite and 176,474 campaign event participants. The survey was conducted on 1,166 consumers participated in the reassuring campaign from Sep 17, 2021, to Sep 23, 2021) and 98% responded "the reassuring items – safe PP baby bottle, rice bran sunscreen, UV sterilizer helped relieve anxiety about endocrine disruptors, rice bran ingredients, and preservative" which showed consumers perception for Hetbahn has greatly changed. The reassurance campaign helped improve sales. The sales increased by 132% compared to the same period in the previous year (June 2020-August 2020) and 117% compared to the previous three months (March 2021-May 2021).