Insight
Gandour, the leading Lebanese producer of cocoa based products, bakery & confectionery, decided to increase the selling price of their iconic product, “Tarboosh” by 33%.
This increase needed to happen because for the past 5 years food raw material prices had been steadily increasing (namely Sugar by 50.60% and Cocoa by 16.21%), and yet there had been no price adjustment for Tarboosh for over ten years. The brand was therefore operating at a loss.
The main challenge was to communicate the price increase without creating negative backlash from consumers (adult Lebanese 35+).
Tarboosh was the inspiration: an authentic, fun, Playful, Accessible, young at heart, humble, childhood friend - popular and definitely original, it was something unique and distinguished that Lebanese had grown up with.
“Never grow up” campaign title provides a clear, concise statement of its goals.
The fun approach that Gandour adopted to communicate Tarboosh's new pricing by owning this platform, from content to happy fun media executions:by ACTING playful throughout the target’s day, Mindshare MENA turned the consumer’s angry world into a fun playground. In a country where people are always worried about pretty much everything, Mindshare MENA took them back to when they were kids, when fun was all that mattered.
Strategy
No matter how hard the situation and the surrounding circumstances, the Lebanese always see the fun side of life. ‘Accessible fun’ is therefore key for them in a country where the political unrests and economic difficulties have become so serious. If they were asked when they had the most fun in their lives, adults would typically respond that it was when they were kids.
As Tarboosh is a brand that has been around for nearly 50 years, the agency's target audience has grown up with the brand. Therefore they wanted to take them back to when they were a kid, when fun was all that mattered - not money and price.
Execution
―When people woke up to read the paper, they were always bombarded with bad news. So one morning, Mindshare MENA changed their daily newspaper into a Tarboosh news piece. To the readers' surprise, the paper came with a false cover full of funny headlines and stories about Tarboosh.
―On their drive to work through streets full of traffic, noise, and frustration, the agency played cheerful yellow animations on outdoor LED screens spread across the entire country.
―When they turned on the Radio, instead of hearing the same dreary stories, Mindshare MENA gave listeners a chance to play sneaky jokes on their friends. They also sponsored a live continuous broadcast that broke the Guinness World Record, featuring Tarboosh for more than 36 hours.
―On their work break when they browsed the internet, they found fun & engaging content on Gandour Facebook page, and also an animated YouTube series starring stop motion Tarboosh characters.
―When going to the cinema after a long day of work, on-screen pranks were played on people before the movie. The short sketches revolved around Tarboosh products going missing from the animations – a mini game of treasure hunt. The audience had to find the chocolate heroes, who to their surprise, turned up under their seats in brand new packs of three.
―At the end of the day when they turned on the TV, negative and dramatic content was what they were used to seeing. Instead of all the drama, Mindshare MENA ran new playful and creative commercials with great comedians as comic relief.
Results
11,034 cases vs. a target 0% (target was flat sales) YOY (Client: Sales Report)
―A profit of 15% was achieved vs. a target of 7% beating the set target and meeting the category average (source: Client reports)
In Addition:
―50,000 fans were generated for the Gandour Arabia Facebook page in 2 weeks, 62% above expectations (source: Facebook)
―And more importantly people had a chance to escape the daily grind and bring out the child inside.