Insight
As a brand, NIDO stands for love and the best nutrition milk can offer. For 70 years, an emotional connection has been built between mums, children and NIDO. However, those feelings haven’t translated into the engagement that is necessary to truly build a bond with today’s consumers. Previous campaigns had motivated a few thousand mums to participate, but that’s only a small portion of the millions in the region.
Competition was accelerating their communication investment, dominating NIDO with 94% SOV in 2014. NIDO was in jeopardy of losing connection with mums.
Receiving engagement from mums was no small task. Women in the Middle East are notorious for low response rates to brand campaigns due to social norms and general lack of trust. NIDO needed to tap into a deep emotional area that other brands hadn’t reached.
By speaking with mums across multiple countries, MEC uncovered a new insight into her maternal feelings. Nature has given every mother the instinct to love, nurture and protect not just her own child but the plurality of children. This maternal calling is what makes her motherhood universal.
There’s a generation of children in the Middle East who are struggling with poor nutrition. The situation is so widespread that it’s virtually impossible for just an individual mother to make a difference.
Strategy
The agency wanted to evoke this maternal spirit in Middle Eastern mums and ask them to help children in need through one simple act – take a PLEDGE to raise a healthier generation.
It identified mums that would be most likely to embark on this pledge – the Nurturing Mothers. Through research the agency understood her primary motivations for her children are to be healthy and happy. She believes the vitamins and minerals in milk are essential to her child having the polished, healthy physical appearance that makes her feel like a good mother. Now, NIDO would allow her to help other children have this same glow.
There was no purchase required, no coupon to fill, no competition to join in… just pledge her support and the brand would donate glasses of NIDO to a child who needs this nutrition.
1 pledge = 7 glasses of NIDO
The pledge is a simple, but powerful symbol of a heart drawn on a hand. The hand represents the caring acts that a mum does for her children, while the heart symbolises the impact that her and NIDO’s love can have to enhance these acts. It was inclusive for all people to participate, despite the social restrictions around women taking pictures of their faces in conservative parts of the Middle East. This pledge became the visual rallying cry that united people around the region to join with NIDO and raise a healthier generation.
Execution
Reaching 1 million pledges required a completely new way of thinking about digital media.
Typical high-reach tactics, banners and video, produced a minimal volume of pledges and a conversion rate of 0.03%. Instead, MEC entered an entirely new area for a Nestlé marketing campaign – eCommerce.
It positioned the pledge as a daily deal instead of an advertising campaign. The offer was simple: “purchase” a pledge for 0.00 Dirham and NIDO will give 7 glasses of milk to children who need it. It was the first time that an FMCG brand had ever user this approach.
Since it was unlike any deal that had run in the past, the agency was unsure if people would respond. Right from the start, the risk paid off. Tens of thousands pledged in the first week. Due to its success, it expanded the pledge to Mumzworld, Hit the Deals, Trolley.ae and Souq.com, positioned on all of them as a native deal. Realising the response, sites began to feature it on their front page to entice their customers with the pledge.
The campaign generated such an immense online buzz that major blogs in the region soon picked it up, helping spread NIDO's positive message. In the words of Best of Riyadh’s editor “It is actually NIDO marketing and helping in one, and I must admit I like the idea.”
Results
Almost 200,000 pledges have been made through native placements on eCommerce sites, playing an integral role in reaching the goal of 1 million pledges.
Native drove 159 times as many pledges as ALL standard display and video placements COMBINED (188,241 native vs. 1,182 banner/video pledges).
The cost per pledge was 239 times more efficient ($0.44 native vs. $105.00 banner/video Cost Per Pledge).
This campaign has also opened the doors for other Nestlé brands to explore eCommerce sites as options for marketing campaigns with two other brands already in discussion with Cobone.
The campaign impacted perception of the brand as moms said NIDO helps nurture her child’s future (+10pts), is an innovative brand (+18pts), and is specialized in children’s nutritional needs (+13pts), all of these at 90% confidence level.
Business gains have been massive with incremental sales of more than 35%.
Most importantly, through the efforts of these pledgers and NIDO, over 14 million glasses of milk will be donated to children who need it, with over 1.3 million coming from native deals on eCommerce sites.