Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

The Challenges
Think of OldTownWhiteCoffee (OTWC) and you’d think of old uncle making coffee in old town Ipoh. While this has worked for core OTWC consumers (35-60 years), it didn’t resonate with their younger audience segment (20-34 years / millennials). OTWC had to capture interest and improve brand sentiment among millennials.

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
Consumer research revealed that white coffee is taken primarily to unwind and we saw a key opportunity for OTWC to own afternoon and evening breaks. This is a stark contrast to traditional perk me up in the morning positioning by other coffee brands. Nielsen qualitative research revealed a window to own key unwinding moments where OTWC can play a companion role. We identified key moments i.e destress, short break moments between 3pm-6pm and relaxation and bonding between 6pm-9pm.

Media Execution
Many unwind moments were crafted in line with their lifestyle and connected moments, matching the contextual targeting across all video platforms. We followed them across different screens between 3pm-9pm. In the office, the work version appeared on news and business sites to invite them to take a pause. Whilst they are enjoying their favourite videos on TV and videos-on-demand after work (be it Korean dramas or funny cat videos), we reinforced the micro-moment with boomerang-style videos (like same old routine in life) and leveraged this mnemonic to amplify pause-able moments. We “paused” screen addiction with mid-roll ads on long-form videos – making a real statement to pause with OTWC. In cinema, a public service announcement slot was capitalized to applaud them for taking a pause.

Results and Effectiveness
+32% in brand image score amongst millennials (source: focus group). 37% of millennials associated OTWC with coolest brand (benchmarked against 4 other competitors), a position held by Nescafe RTD. Positive brand sentiment share on OTWC Facebook +19 percent point within 4 weeks. + 18% ad recall lift.