Insight
Fairy is a dishwashing liquid brand launched in Germany in the 90s. Before the campaign kicked off, Fairy was far behind other competitors and retailer brands in Germany. The value shares were disappointing due to the brand being ten years off-air.
Looking back to the 90s, Fairy was successfully positioned as a brand with the proposition of quick dishwashing so that you can move on with celebrating life and enjoying family time. The TV commercial brought the emotions to life with the paella competition between Villariba & Villabajo, two imaginary Spanish villages that strived for the fastest and most efficient dish wash. Less time for washing, more time for having fun & celebrating life.
After the success in the 90s, the consumers forgot about Fairy, but they never forgot about the paella TV copy as the copy awareness remained high (65%). The challenges were:
a) To drive awareness of Fairy’s new formula and thereby resurrect a dusty and almost forgotten brand.
b) Demonstrate its new benefit of improved cleaning power by engaging consumers in a real life experience.
Strategy
After 10 years off-air, the consumers still love Fairy’s paella commercial – let’s bring the old feelings of Villariba/Villabajo back to life.
Fairy was a love brand everyone knew years ago. But during the long off-air period, the competition caught up and even overtook the brand. So Mediacom needed to bring the old feelings and Fairy back to life, but also show how Fairy’s performance and mileage have improved.
Who: Families with kids (20-49), younger couples and singles.
Consumer Insight: Dishwashing is a chore. I will choose the dish washing liquid which guarantees me the best performance.
Strategy: Villariba & Villabajo 2.0. The agency hosted the once-in-a-lifetime Fairy fiesta in Berlin, Germany’s capital. In this event, it let the consumers experience the mileage of new Fairy and made clear to them: If you buy Fairy, you also get more quality time - at home and with your friends & family.
Execution
TV show co-operation as the base: Who knows better how efficient a dishwashing liquid needs to be than a famous chef. So the idea of the “Küchenchef’s” Co-op (German TV show) with the well-known chef Ralf Zacherl was born, the perfect linkage between cooking, washing-up and the target group.
Real life excitement: The Fairy Fiesta. The agency created a huge event at the Sony Center Berlin where we wanted to cook Germany’s largest paella and celebrate Germany’s biggest fiesta ever. The TV station RTL as partner created an on top charity aspect: It gave Berlin paella for free and invited consumers to donate for the RTL children foundation in return.
Pre-invitation phase: For nationwide attention it aired an event TV trailer and spread the news on all relevant online, social media and PR channels. To maximise local awareness the agency flooded Berlin with local media such as newspapers, radio and OOH.
The event itself: Under the umbrella of celebrating for children, 40,000 people came to the event and enjoyed the Fairy fiesta together. After cooking, Ralf Zacherl also washed plates himself. 12,162 plates have been cleaned by him and the team with just 1 bottle of Fairy! German record!
Nationwide promotion of the event success: Mediacom also used the event to shoot a first-class and emotional TV copy which spread the Berlin-Paella-Success-Story to whole Germany. This was supported by tremendous (paid and earned) PR and social media coverage to share impressions of the event with all Germans who could not attend.
Results
The strategy was to let the consumers experience the mileage of Fairy and make clear to them: If you buy Fairy, you also get more quality time - at home and with your friends & family.
The Fairy mileage superiority was beyond doubt proven by:
• Cooking the biggest paella in Germany and washing up 12,162 dishes with only one bottle of Fairy, breaking two German records!
• About 40,000 visitors with friends & families at the big Fairy fiesta, at which even stars washed up.
• Donation in the amount of €55,555 ($67,942) for RTL – Wir helfen Kindern (we help children) collected.
And it successfully prolonged the message of Fairy’s mileage among the German audience:
• Expanded resonance through PR and Social Media: 213 Million impressions and 23% of German online users were reached, more than 300 reportings, thereof 7 TV reports.
• Strong trade support through customer-individual cooking events.
Last but not least all communication efforts made a sales push: Through the Fairy fiesta it could raise the market share by about 47% (July 2013 in comparison to July 2012).