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Objective & Challenge
Objective and Challenge Nando’s has been operating its restaurant chain in Malaysia for 20+ years. It had 80 outlets across Malaysia, while it is not as large as KFC, McDonald’s it has a core set of loyalists, Nando’s sauces are seen as key differentiator. Nando’s has been looking to widen its sales outside of restaurant’s make its famous sauces available in hypermarkets. This strategy is for increasing its sales from its loyal user based and grow loyalists. Nando’s dine-in constituted 82% of overall sales and was biggest driver of revenue. Significant portion of business was lost during pandemic. Nando’s had to reduce number stores forced to reduce headcount from 1800 to 1000. It needed to strengthen its sales in retail channels ensuring alternate revenue source and widen its retail reach by tapping into growing power of e-commerce platforms. Nando’s portfolio on retail channels ran the risk of being seen as jaded: launching new product innovations via e-commerce was expected to revitalise retail channel sales.

Insight & Strategy
Insight and Strategy Food category is extremely competitive within retail, especially within e-commerce. Nando’s sauces not staple purchase like bread so chance of consumers discovering them are low. Inability to get noticed quickly would increase time to achieve revenue, it was essential Nando’s reaches critical mass quickly and starts generating revenue. Unlike hypermarket where it is possible to block aisle space, e-commerce has low barriers of entry. Nando’s was competing against host of small manufacturers and global players. Losing a prospect is just one swipe away. Our Spicy Strategy: It became essential to drive consumers directly to transaction, ensuring media investment maximisation and fast forwarded sales.

Execution
Execution : Key drivers a> Leverage E-commerce platform Strategy to tap existing platform due to their high organic traffic and ease of operationalisation. However they also have high levels of competition and clutter, was essential that Nando’s cut thru the clutter. Unlike supermarket shelves with constraints in number of stock keeping units, e-commerce platform is potentially infinite in clutter. b> Breaking the clutter Organic traffic on e-commerce platforms take time to build, targeted digital campaign was launched to drive Nando’s relevant audience directly to e-commerce store. Targeting was on audience interest – people who eat out, have shown interest in Nando’s…Initial visitors were used for look alike targeting, increasing relevant reach efficiently. Creatives linked to innovative recipes with new lines of sauces and product innovations like bag&bake was used to widen interest and cut thru food content clutter on social media. CPAS (Collaborative Performance Advertising Solution) inventory on social media allowed for showcasing product offers directly e-commerce platform on social channels. Video content generated higher level of engagement and desire. c> Influencers to widen Reach Availability e-commerce allowed for widening audience, Influencers with strong fan following were chosen using our selection algorithms. Using education and personal recipes with new sauce variants allowed increasing engagement and reach. Tapping into visual appeal of Instagram for driving more spicy desire.

Effectiveness
Due to business urgency the campaign was planned for only December’21-Jan 2022. During the campaign visitors to e-commerce platforms grew at average of 150% month on month. Social media buzz saw 50% increase vs. the past. Promotional efforts for e-commerce had halo effect also on the hypermarket sales channel. Comparison of sales of sauces pre the campaign vs. post saw the following : Reduction on dependence on restaurant as sales channel to the growth from hypermarket sales by 4% point increase. Newly set up e-commerce channel now represented a significant 5% of the overall sales, reflecting a 400% growth. The campaign ensured continuation of the brand’s omnichannel strategy and increased the accessibility of Nando’s brand to wider audience via e-commerce. Despite the short duration and smaller budget of the campaign, it delivered well on all key campaign metrics : Campaign for the sauces and spices in the two months achieved an unique reach of almost 5 million The high engagement of the content on social media allowed for achieving CPLC (Cost per Link Click) at 80% lower vs similar other e-commerce projects, resulting in a huge jump in e-commerce sales for Nando’s. Resultant increase in retail sales was seen as a means to reduce the gap in revenue due to reduced dine-in. The presence in retail channels, including e-commerce site was a means to grow the core Nando’s user base. Beyond immediate sales impact the Nando’s Brand Equity gained. On-going brand equity showed increase in key metrics : “Readily Available Wherever you Want” increased in 6% point, while “Affordable” associations went up 7% point after the campaign. Indicating long term impact. The single campaign, like all good spices, left a memorable impact!

Objective & Challenge
While COVID19 continued to wreak havoc on the Malaysian economy in 2021, it also casted a gloom on the overall country’s sentiments. Wall’s, in line with its brand proposition, wanted to establish itself as a brand that spread joy and happiness. The pandemic had resulted in Malaysia’s worst unemployment figures in the last 20 years. However, food delivery services were one of the few sectors which experienced exponential growth. In a short span of time, GrabFood and Foodpanda had become everyone’s go-to-option for ordering food online from their favorite restaurants. This incremental demand drove incremental need for riders. More than 15,000 unemployed adults 18+ joined as “Grab Riders”, which although provided a quick fix for protecting livelihoods, inevitably put them at risk as frontliners. At such trying times, when livelihood was put to test, how did a commercial ice cream brand such as Walls, lightened the burden for frontliners –grab riders and drove sales for its brand?

Insight & Strategy
This rise of online delivery presented the opportunity for Walls products within the food delivery app. Grab research showed that “90% of Malaysians were willing to support frontliners”. Statistics also revealed “150 road accidents involving food delivery riders on motorcycles every month”. We wanted to protect our frontliners, who were braving the virus for us, come rain or shine, by riding on compassionate public goodwill. We leveraged this opportunity to strike a collaboration with Grab, Malaysia’s leader in food services. The path-breaking campaign, Abang Hero 2.0 Wall’s Bersama Riders was launched in collaboration with Grab, living the true spirit of #kitajagakita (we take care of each other) – personifying Unilever Wall’s brand purpose. This campaign was also designed to drive the sales within the platform through the goodwill that’s generated by the activity.

Execution
Our execution strategy was to amplify positivity by keeping the hero riders safe whilst on the job, aided by crowd funding. With every purchase of Wall’s ice-cream worth RM30 and above on Grab Food, RM5 was channeled towards funding helmet purchases. Alpha, macro & micro KOLs, who bought walls ice cream and contributed to the helmet purchases, promoted this initiative, and shared their memories/experience with riders during pandemic times. FB, IG & Content Publishers were used to create buzz & hype up the campaign, encouraging our target audience to share content leading which leads to the Wall’s ice-cream order site on Grab app. Netizens were encouraged to share their fondest memories with Grab riders on Instagram, tag @wallsmalaysia and include the hashtags #WallsBersamaRiders #TQGrabRider #ChooseHappierTogether. Selected entries were shared on Wall’s Malaysia’s social media channels. We also promoted stories of 10 riders, inspiring netizens to voluntarily join the initiative.

Effectiveness
Staying true to Wall’s brand purpose, “spreading joy and putting smiles on faces, we delivered the following results: 1. How Media contributed to the partnership – Wall’s donated 1000 ice creams – MYR100,000 worth of safety helmets donated to riders. – More than 174K ice-creams were sold on Wall’s Grab Food store during the activity 2. How Media influenced Wall’s ice-cream sales – +624% increase in sales on Wall’s Grab Food Store versus 2020 during the same period 3. Media campaign achievement over delivered – +20% higher impressions for free! Value added supported by Revasia Network – Overachieved planned reach by 49% driven by free impressions and organic sharing – More that 6000+ orders were shared on social media, contributing to the free organic impressions

Objective & Challenge
Panadol is the most trusted pain relief brand in Malaysia occupying more than 90% market share in the category – but, it has been a very tough brand to grow on traditional e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada due to various reasons: 1. Since it is an OTC brand, we’re not able to drive price promotions or trade promotions like GWP (Gift with Purchase) to entice users to purchase the brand – an approach that has been mighty effective on some of GSK’s other brands. 2. The brand has a very need-based purpose – example, if a consumer has a headache, they want it instantly and cannot afford to wait 3-5 days for the delivery through an e-commerce partner. While we were rolling out biggest ever campaign for post vaccination care across multiple touchpoints, we were also tasked to put a heavy emphasis on driving growth on the e-commerce front overcoming the challenges that exist.

Insight & Strategy
Insight: As part of the first round of mass vaccination arranged by the government, they had allotted almost 35 vaccination centres across the major cities. Netizens were to sign-up on the government created website for vaccination registrations. The response on that platform was so over-whelming that the platform crashed on the day of registration and within the first 2 hours, all the allocated slots had been booked. With great luck, one of our team members were able to register as part of the first batch of mass vaccinations organized by the Malaysian government. Through that personal experience, we mapped out consumers’ entire vaccination journey which helped us to identify key insights which formed an anchor for our e-commerce approach: 1. A vast majority of people came to the vaccination centres using Grab or other e-hailing platforms because of ambiguity over parking and the post vaccination side-effects. 2. At the last stage of vaccination, there was a 15min observation window during which HCPs pre-empted netizens of the post vaccination side-effects and advised to take paracetamol to relieve pain. Furthermore, the Ministry of Health of Malaysia announced that people will likely experience post vaccination symptoms for 3 – 5 days and advised people to drink lots of water and take paracetamol as needed. Strategy: The insights presented a very clear “need-based” opportunity – which happens to be the vaccination day + 5 days to induce purchase given the symptoms post vaccination have a short shelf-life for most. Given the tie-up to post vaccination care and the short pain window of opportunity, it was not feasible for us to use the orthodox way of using CPAS or Google Smart Shopping Ads to drive traffic to the Lazada and Shopee of the world because: 1. Both, Google and Facebook, are unable to locate precisely individuals who’ve been vaccinated within our target window due to limited location proximity targeting. 2. Even if these platforms could target those newly vaccinated individuals, driving traffic to Lazada and Shopee would be pointless because by the time those individuals order online and received their delivery, they would have likely fallen out of the “need-based” window. As a result, our e-commerce strategy had to center around a platform which can identify individuals within the “need-based” window and provide them with the solution to their problem instantly. The only platform capable of doing that was Grab and so, our strategy revolved around Grab.

Execution
Geo-location is basically Grab’s bread and butter and given the insight that majority of the audiences took Grab to get to vaccination centers, we used that location data to re-target them post their vaccination at very high frequencies in their next five days. This was primarily to mirror Ministry of Health’s announcement that post vaccination symptoms would ordinarily linger for that period. The core messaging for this execution was “Panadol can help relieve symptoms of pain and fever post COVID-19 vaccination.” The communication was aired across Grab on their “Home Feed,” “In-Transit Food” and “In-Transit Transport” as static visuals. For those taking Grab straight from the vaccination, their In-Transit Transport message headline was even more contextual asking “Feeling pain or feverish Post Vaccination?” to drive higher relevance. The consumer journey was mapped out in a way whereby, there was a clear call-to-action for consumers to purchase Panadol through Grab Mart. Essentially, ensuring that we’re able to close the consumer journey loop within a span of 1-hour. This way, we could ensure that we can reach and deliver the product within our designated “need-based” window. From second month onwards, we even used re-targeting pool of “purchasers” to expand our pool of audiences beyond only the vaccinated.

Effectiveness
The campaign turned out to be a resounding success from a media deliverable standpoint as well as from a business results standpoint. The campaign managed to reach over 800,000 vaccinated individuals or their proxy caretakers during the campaign through precise proximity layering. The campaign managed to deliver CTRs of just a shade over 1% (much higher than any benchmarks for static display ads). The In-Transit Feed turned out to be the best performing ad-placement with a CTR of 1.79%. Grab Mart’s contribution in terms of sales was around RM40,000 organically on average per month. Here’s how the sales fared during the activation: May: Organic average RM40,000 + RM72,318 incremental = RM112,318 (ROAS of 2.89) June: Organic average RM40,000 + RM94,000 incremental = RM134,982 (ROAS of 3.76) July: Organic average RM40,000 + RM186,777 incremental = RM226,777 (ROAS of 7.47) Grab Mart, which was a tiny contributor in e-commerce sales for GSK turned into a sales behemoth during the entirety of this campaign. Upon the great success of this activation, this unorthodox e-commerce model became a best practice within GSK for Panadol and was rolled out to other SEA markets during their respective vaccination rollouts. But, aside from sales numbers, the most satisfactory part of this campaign was that we were able to provide pain relief to Malaysians at a very painful time.

Objective & Challenge
Jo Malone London is a British lifestyle brand known for its unique fragrance portfolio and luxury products for the bath, body and home. Jo Malone London primarily focused on the Lazada marketplace for their e-commerce transactions, but in 2022 they added e-commerce capabilities to their own website. This raised concerns about potential traffic competition between the Lazada marketplace and the website, particularly during the end-of-year holiday season. While the Lazada team prepared for the 11.11 and 12.12 campaigns, the brand team worked on a separate Christmas campaign for the website. Historically, the 11.11 campaign generated the highest revenue and sales for the brand, while the 12.12 campaign struggled to perform, although still maintaining a positive return on ad spend (ROAS). The marketplace team worried that running a concurrent Christmas campaign would further weaken the 12.12 campaign, potentially causing the campaign’s ROAS to drop below 1. During the campaign planning phase, we recognized the importance of dividing our focus and targeting specific channels for each individual campaign.

Insight & Strategy
Recognizing the significance of the 11.11 campaign as the brand’s most important event, we allocated our marketplace budgets accordingly. We implemented a comprehensive full-funnel strategy, leveraging on channels such as Meta, TikTok, Google Display, and YouTube. This approach allowed us to maximize sales for the 11.11 campaign while maintaining overall budget efficiency for the Marketplace team. Consequently, we made the decision to reduce the budget for the 12.12 campaign in order to prioritize results and campaign efficiency. We chose to focus solely on the Meta channel, as it had historically been instrumental in driving revenue for us. By concentrating on revenue-driving channels, we were able to closely monitor and optimize our campaigns, ensuring a positive return on ad spend (ROAS) throughout the campaign period. Having addressed the concerns of the marketplace team, our focus then shifted to supporting the brand team in achieving their website objectives. The Christmas campaign was anticipated to be the highlight of the year for the website, driving overall traffic and revenue goals for 2022. By leveraging our audience insights, we identified that website users were primarily interested in product discovery and knowledge, rather than being solely driven by promotional codes or discounts as seen on marketplaces. To align with these user preferences, we strategically utilized channels such as TikTok, YouTube, and Google Search to effectively drive website traffic and revenue. This approach allowed us to optimize our campaigns and ensure they aligned with the audience’s intent, ultimately helping us achieve our objectives.

Execution
After the conclusion of the 11.11 campaign, we implemented a two-week cooling off period during which we focused our brand budget on maximizing reach, frequency, and engagement through social media posts. On November 26th, we initiated the Meta Traffic campaign for the upcoming 12.12 promotion, aiming to subtly generate interest among users. During this phase, we allocated only 20% of our overall budget, as we anticipated lower traffic and revenue numbers. At the start of December, we introduced more call-to-action (CTA) focused ads for the Meta Traffic campaigns, while simultaneously launching the Meta Conversion campaign for 12.12. We gradually introduced the Christmas campaign on the website, prioritizing awareness and reach through YouTube Skippable In-Stream ads and TikTok Reach and Frequency ads. This approach allowed us to give 12.12 campaign the main focus in terms of traffic and revenue, without compromising on the awareness phase of our Christmas campaign. Following the completion of 12.12, we shifted our strategy to focus on driving traffic and revenue for the Christmas campaign. This was achieved by transitioning TikTok to the traffic objective and adjusting our YouTube campaign towards TruView for Action. Additionally, we introduced the Meta Conversion campaign for the website, as it has proven to be the brand’s most important revenue driver.

Effectiveness
All three campaigns, the 11.11, 12.12, and Christmas campaigns, exceeded expectations and delivered impressive results. The 11.11 campaign achieved an outstanding return on ad spend (ROAS) of 5.3, making it the second best-performing brand within the Estee Lauder portfolios for the 11.11 campaign. With a campaign reach of over 750k, we successfully drove traffic to the Lazada store at a low cost of RM0.45. The 12.12 campaign also performed exceptionally well, achieving a positive ROAS of 3.9 and surpassing the previous year’s performance. Despite a reduced budget, we were able to achieve a healthy reach of 450k and drove traffic to the Lazada store at an even lower cost of RM0.24. The Christmas campaign achieved an impressive ROAS of 3.2. Moreover, we surpassed our traffic targets by achieving 180% of the initial goals. This success can be attributed to the high overall click-through rate (CTR) of over 4% and the overall cost per click (CPC) of under RM0.20. Overall, these campaigns delivered exceptional results in terms of return on investment, reach, traffic generation, and cost efficiency.

Objective & Challenge
During the sacred month of Ramadan and the joyful celebration of HariRaya, there is a profound transformation in thoughts, search behavior, and purchasing decisions of millions of Malaysians. Daily routines shift as people fast from dawn to dusk, work shorter hours, and make preparations for the evening buka-puasa. This significant change in consumer behavior, especially in online engagement within the Food&Beverage industry, presented a unique challenge for KFC, given our primarily Malay customer base. To address this challenge head-on, KFC embarked on a mission to reshape consumer spending patterns and encourage both new and existing customers to pre-order their buka-puasa meals in advance. The primary objective was to foster growth in KFC’s online business, particularly during Malaysia’s most celebrated festivities,Ramadan and HariRaya. By understanding their evolving needs and preferences, KFC developed captivating marketing campaigns and harnessed the power of digital platforms to create anticipation and drive customer engagement. The ultimate goal was to become the preferred choice for indulgent meals during this joyous time of year.

Insight & Strategy
Aligning with the iftar (break-fast) time, which coincides with dinner time, there is an expected surge in delivery demand between 5pm-7pm. This can pose challenges for restaurants as they may experience a significant influx of orders, leading to potential delays in food preparation and deliveries not reaching customers in time for buka-puasa. To address this issue, we have thoroughly analyzed various insights and made adjustments to our media strategy. Our objective is to effectively reaching out wide audience while maintaining relevance, encouraging them to place pre-orders for their buka-puasa and drive e-comm sales during the daytime. Insight 1: Malaysian Muslims engage in various activities during Ramadan, with a particular inclination towards watching their favorite Raya tunes on YouTube. This platform experiences a significant tenfold increase in viewership compared to non-Ramadan periods. Insight 2: It has been observed that consumers tend to engage in more shopping activities during fasting hours and after breaking their fast. Peak shopping times typically occur between 12pm-4pm and 9pm-11pm. Furthermore, people are spending more time online, actively searching for the best deals and offers before making their purchases. Recognizing the opportunity to tap into the essence of Ramadan, KFC aims to establish a meaningful connection with our audiences by leveraging the power of branding to drive impactful sales outcomes. As part of our efforts, KFC also introduced off-peak promotion to incentivize consumers to pre-order their meals. To effectively reach our target audience and influence their ordering behavior during Ramadan, our strategy focuses on 3-key approaches: 1.Establish Association: To create a presence on platforms and channels where our audience actively participates throughout the day to ensure brand visibility. 2.Cutting Through: Secure and maximize our presence during the significant moments of Ramadan-Raya. Our aim is to ensure that our messaging stands out amidst the competition and being the top-of-mind choice for buka-puasa meal. 3.Supercharge: To actively engage with our audience and enhance our performance by delivering relevant content that resonates with them throughout Ramadan. This approach allows us to establish a stronger connection and ultimately close the deal.

Execution
Our strategies to win executed in 3-steps: 1.Associate & Engage: Immerse in the Vibrancy of Ramadan In recognizing that the consumer journey is not limited to a single medium or platform, KFC strategically taps into a diverse range of media platforms and formats to maintain momentum throughout the month of Ramadan. Our approach begins by leveraging YouTube, where we align ourselves with the latest top Malay content lineup and trending dynamic music, ensuring KFC’s prominent presence across the freshest Ramadan-Raya content to drive association. Whether individuals are enjoying Raya songs, watching cooking recipes while thinking what to cook for their families, we strive to capture their attention through non-skippable ad formats to ensure consumers receive our festive offering message and motivate them to ordering ahead. We also go beyond general interest targeting by leveraging Ramadan-Raya search signals on advertising platforms. Custom keywords targeting keeps KFC at the forefront of search and content trends. This approach connects with evolving audience interests, encouraging exploration of KFC’s offerings and advance orders for buka-puasa meals. 2.Timely Impact: Cutting Through the Ramadan Moments To seize the spotlight during key daily moments like sahur, buka-puasa, and snacking, our ad features to creatively time-target at core moments across multiple channels with higher frequency (from 2x to 4x). We schedule ads and promotions to coincide with peak shopping hours during fasting and after breaking fast, focus on promoting pre-ordering during these periods to capture the attention of customers actively searching for meal options and deals. Whereas during the period of 2pm-5pm, we prioritize on creating a sense of urgency by emphasizing the need to pre-order to ensure a timely and satisfying meal experience after a day of fasting. 3.Ignite Performance: Supercharging Success To close the loop, we unlock the Google’s AI-powered ads solutions to connect with people who have high intent and actively searching food for buka-puasa, at speed and at scale. With the advanced machine learning capabilities, we effortlessly find and acquire new customers for KFC e-comm. By incorporating promotional and discount creatives, we entice these new users, while precision targeting using audience segments ensures a personalized experience. For existing users, we employ a multi-faceted approach with enticing promotions & exclusive discount and tantalizing new product launch creatives, igniting engagement to drive repeat purchases on the KFC app.

Effectiveness
The implemented strategy arrested the decline in sales typically seen during Ramadan for Food Category, but through our 3prong strategy, we achieved order ahead target for 2 to 5pm and gained substantial uplift: 1.Successfully shifted consumer behavior, with 2.2x increase in customers ordering ahead during fasting month of Ramadan. 2.Purchase conversions experienced significant uplift of 122%. 3.The cost per purchase reduced by 24%, indicating improved efficiency in acquiring customers. 4.The purchase conversion rate shown a notable increase of 64%, demonstrating higher rate of successful transactions. 5.The purchase value has seen a substantial growth of 112%, reflecting the increased on overall revenue generated. 6.ROAS improved by 26%, indicating more favorable return on investment.