CARNATION: A DATA-LED AND MODULAR CAMPAIGN TO DRIVE SALES ACROSS MARKETS

The Story

Nestlé Carnation was suffering from being a seasonal product. People were only buying sweetened condensed milk for special occasions like Christmas, Easter and Ramadan for a handful of recipes like banoffee pie.

Consumers who bake often, buy often. So Nestlé needed a creative idea that would engage consumers all year round. Something that would help people find joy in baking with sweetened condensed milk more often.

If they didn’t engage people with a data-led content strategy, publish inspirational content frequently in the right place, at the right time, with the right message, they’d risk wasting marketing budget on short-term tactics and failing to inspire consumers to buy and bake regularly – losing market share to competitors.

Through our work we increased awareness, engagement and sales which helped to establish Nestlé as a baking authority and Carnation products as the best choice for inspiring bakes that bring people closer together.

What we did

Data-led creative

To find out how best to build sustainable growth for Nestlé, we started by speaking to key markets about existing marketing plans to work out where the opportunities were. We took audience data, analysed search and online behaviours to identify common themes so we could design a content mission that worked globally.

We found that people mainly came to the Nestlé sites for special occasion recipes. But there was a huge opportunity to serve a wider variety of searches for other types of content like how-tos, inspiration, and longer reads on baking or baking lifestyle. We also found that 70% of people see baking as a form of self-expression, so we knew creativity was an important part of our audiences’ lives.

Increasing content in these areas and appealing to the creative spirit in consumers would help to establish Carnation as a year-round favourite, rather than a one-off purchase for special occasions.

Campaign film and asset production

Armed with insights, we developed a creative platform for the campaign called ‘Celebrate the Little Things’. It was all about creating moments of togetherness, and encouraging everyday baking to celebrate all the little joys in life, rather than waiting for a big special occasion.

We wrote, storyboarded and produced a hero film featuring hero recipes, along with cut-down versions for use on TV, social media and paid digital assets. All designed to be shareable and engaging to inspire consumers, drive traffic to the website and drive sales.

Market localisation

We used a modular approach to produce campaign assets so that Nestlé condensed milk brands could insert their own local products. Using an approach like this means local markets didn’t need to produce their own campaigns from scratch; instead, we provided them with customisable assets to reduce waste, save their budgets, their time and effort.

We produced a culturally sensitive toolkit to show markets how to use each asset in the customer journey, how to customise them for their own unique needs and how to treat the assets in organic and paid media so they could create a connected experience for consumers and increase brand visibility, product usage, brand advocacy and sales.

Why it was brilliant

Our research built a holistic view of the Nestlé sweetened condensed milk audience, which meant we could align purpose and content strategy across all markets, and all brands.

This meant that Nestlé could centrally manage a campaign for year-round consumer engagement, but also enable local markets to customise their campaign for their unique cultural needs and products – giving more local control and reducing marketing waste but maintaining a consistent brand message.

Our ‘Celebrate the Little Things’ campaign meant Nestlé condensed milk brands reached more people – creating more engagement and generating more product sales.