Insight
Brands today face a constant challenge of staying close to their consumers. For the last couple of years, Knorr and Lipton have been trying to create inroads into a consumer’s life in a way that’s unforgettable. Understanding the importance of Ramadan in an average Egyptian’s life, Knorr improvised on its global platform ‘What’s for Dinner?’ to create a more local, more relateable iteration ‘What’s for Iftar?’
Knorr was positioning itself as a ‘go-to’ brand for Ramadan, with its offerings of products and ideas to help a homemaker cook for her family during those tough days of fasting. Lipton was also vying for the home-maker's attention as a mood lifter, especially after a long, hard day of fasting.
This was all very well. But Knorr soon found themselves asking, ‘What’s next?’ Easy to ask, not so easy to answer. The trick was to create such clutter-busting communication that would allow Magna Global to own the minds and hearts of the consumers. This could only be done with powerful insight that would capitalize on the feelings of charity and kindness that Ramadan celebrates.
The insight was as powerful as it was simple - while there is abstinence from food during Ramadan, there is also the cultural pressure to over-provide food at Iftar as a symbol of status. And all the while, countrymen, women and children slept hungry.
Thus ‘The Food Waste Project’ was born.
Strategy
Food waste was an untapped subject in Egypt.
The habit of Food waste is deep rooted in tradition - whilst people may recognize that wasting food is not good, they are bound by traditions to put more food than is required on the table for their guests as symbol of generosity and hospitality. Magna Global's challenge was to communicate the issue of Food Wastage in a way that was not culturally offensive, did not challenge traditions, and was done in a politically correct way.
Magna Global know that people celebrate Ramadan in different ways, but the spirit of Ramadan is the same: Generosity, Empathy, Purity & Togetherness. These values are what the agency played on to initiate the “Kamel Karamak” campaign, where they asked consumers to extend their usual Ramadan generosity to avoid food waste by using Knorr products and recycling unused products by donating it to the needy.
Being market leaders, Magna Global believed that they had a social responsibility to pursue by creating awareness of food waste, and to educate people that food can be recycled and redistributed to starving people to improve their quality of life as a part of Unilever suitability living program. This initiative was one of the best expressions of Unilever’s “Doing well, by doing Good” motto.
Execution
“Kamel Karamak” was rolled out in three distinctive phases:
Phase 1 - Connect the Spirit:
This phase was brought to life via a YouTube video that raised awareness and consciousness about food waste in consumers’ minds. This was also heavily promoted on Facebook to drive social conversations. A first of its kind (in Egypt) custom YouTube channel was launched, where consumers were encouraged to take pledges to support the cause.
Since Magna Global also wanted to heighten consumer interaction, they created “Learn, Cook and Donate” activation in sporting clubs and modern trade, where consumers learnt how to cook new recipes side by side with their own chefs and then donate it to the Egyptian Food Bank.
Phase 2 - Share the spirit
On the 15th day of Ramadan, which was the 13th of July, Magna Global hosted the biggest Iftar Table in Cairo’s historic Citadel, aided by 40 chefs, 400 waiters and more than 500 volunteers recruited from their digital campaign, to feed over 3000 people. This event was covered by all major dailies and TV stations.
Phase 3 - Continue the spirit
Magna Global developed content to continue the conversation after the event in terms of hosting opportunities and press releases. In a welcome show of solidarity, Celebrity Chef Alaa el Sherbiniy endorsed the movement on Egypt’s number one cooking show “Lo2ma Hania”. This was in addition to the agency's strategy to support and continue creating awareness for the cause throughout the year on Knorr, Lipton and Egyptian Food Bank digital assets.
Results
The campaign delivered outstanding results, primarily by resonating with Egyptians through a celebration of the true spirit of Ramadan, and also by creating a well-thought out strategic vision.
Knorr grew from the period of May – July by 38.9% in 2014 vs. same period in 2013 from a business perspective.
• PR value of 1.3 Million Euros.
• Free Ad value of 417,000 Euros.
• 1,158 anti-food wastage pledges in 2 weeks, hosting the biggest Iftar table with 3,000 attendees including celebrities & Minister of Supply & Trade.
• Reached 2.8 Million fans - triple the current Knorr fan base on Facebook.
• Average engagement rate of 5%; each post generated over 2,500 shares.
• Number of users subscribed to the YouTube channel was 2,474, with 500 volunteers recruited.
• The Waste Video reached 2,217,372 users and the coverage video was viewed 287,478 times.
• Magna Global over-delivered by 52% on YouTube views in both the Kamel Karamak video and the big table.
• The True View campaign achieved an overall CTR of 4.02%
• Masthead 1: 5,134,517 impressions & Masthead 2: 4,327,400 impressions, with the average cross screen benchmark for mastheads at 4.21-4.60 Million.
• Donated 0.5 Tons of food via the Egyptian Food Bank.
• 62K consumer interactions during the Learn-Cook-Donate activation.