Category: Channel | PR & Reputation Management Award Level: GOLD Brand: Power Oil | Entrant Company: mediaReach OMD, Lagos, Nigeria Background
Despite the high penetration of the cooking oil category, unbranded cooking oil still accounts for over 60% SOM despite increasing media investments of branded oil brands.
The business target was to grow by 60% over previous year by getting female shoppers that currently purchase unbranded oil to switch to branded oils and thereby drive adoption of branded oils within the category. The communication objective was to break the culture and get them to convert to consumption of branded oil
Creative Idea
Our research showed that there are a lot of unhealthy & unhygienic practices surrounding the sales & distribution of unbranded oil; the vast majority of people, however, were blissfully unaware of how harmful their choice of cheap unbranded cooking oil could be. They simply assumed that all cooking oil, whether branded or not, is essentially the same and that locally produced oil was best. They felt that because they had grown up with it, it couldn’t pose a risk. At the same time, they were mistrustful of advertising messages from most branded goods. We needed another way to bring the issue closer to home.
Strategy
We commissioned TVC Lagos & Channels TV to carry out an undercover journalism research to unearth the unhealthy practices around the unbranded oil sector knowing that the findings will be news worthy & we believe, if made public, will question the status quo of buying unbranded oil knowing and that fear-based appeals is effective at influencing attitudes and behavioral changes, especially among women –who happened to be the key purchase decision makers when it comes to health, hygiene and overall well being of the family
Execution
Phase 1 – Declare a State of Emergency The resulting ground-breaking news reports went out nationally and quickly went viral. The shocking footage sparked a nationwide conversation about cooking oil, food safety and food hygiene in Nigeria. We deployed on local news stations and translated to Hausa, Yoruba & Ibo for grassroot penetration
Phase 2 – Counter the Bias To further capitalise on the media frenzy and inject even more credibility into the debate, we asked medical experts to lend their voices to the debate and encouraged the regulatory authorities to do the same. (NAFDAC, Nigerian Heart Foundation & Medical Experts)
Phase 3 - Harvest Having ramped up the conversation, we then positioned Power Oil – healthy, hygienic and safe – as the most viable alternative to unbranded oils. We not only advertised the product through extensive below-the-line and point-of-sale activity, we also actively promoted smaller sales units (100ml @N50 and 1ltr @N1000 ) in order to make trial easier.
Results
We created a story that gripped the nation and sent shockwaves across the whole category, ultimately resulting in both short and long-term benefits to our brand. The campaign exceeded all sales expectations. Sales of the small 100ml unit, contributing 70% of total Power Oil revenue, increased by 100%. On top of that, sentiment analysis showed a 25% attitudinal shift in favour of branded cooking oils. We not only drove sales in the short term, but helped affect an attitudinal shift away from harmful behaviour towards safer and healthier alternatives throughout the country.