Case Studies

100% Digital Product Launch – Success for Oikos

Customer Challenge

Danone was launching Oikos, a greek yogurt into the crowded Japanese market. Oikos was the second greek yogurt to hit the shelves, trailing Morinaga’s Partheno brand. We needed to develop a digital-led campaign with supporting activation and sampling platforms. And importantly, it needed to satisfy Trade partners, particularly CVS channels who were more used to TV as the driving medium for FMCG. If we didn’t get it right and fast, de-listing was a real possibility.  

In Japan, no one knew Oikos. And even if they did, most didn’t really know the difference between it (greek yogurt) and other traditional yogurt types. Yogurt, in general, was considered a runny breakfast food or maybe, at most, a “good bacteria” medium for healthy digestion. Oikos’s intended position – as a substantial meal-like alternative to unhealthy or, at least, habitual/mindless snacking was not intuitive to the consumer. The barrier, in a nutshell, was that Oikos wasn’t a recognized brand, didn’t fit into an already-known category and didn’t fulfill a pre-existing “need-state” as a yogurt.

Our consumer is an intelligent, hard-working, aspirational, resilient, healthy, beauty-conscious “Hungry Women” in need of better fuel for their bigger aspirations and longer work days.  It is natural, and physical that they crave “snacks” to fuel concentration, energy and stamina for peak performance.  

By default or convenience they reach out to whatever is around them or whatever has become a part of their habitual bio-chemical routine. Fatty, carb-filled, sugary, caffeinated, artificially engineered snacks are often the answer. Unfortunately, whilst instantaneously creating neurological pleasure, ultimately, these empty snacks work against what “Hungry Women” really want and need.

Solution

The Japanese concept for Oikos became “silence that little tummy hunger-monster with a thick and creamy, zero-calorie healthy yoghurt that fills you up to satisfy that snacking urge”.

We executed this with an innovative Instagram collaboration with 15 diverse influencers whose creative spirit, fresh individuality and hungry ambitions represented the innovative essence of Oikos – the spirit of a hungry new generation in Japan. Fashionable and fun. Cool and cute. Authentic and unexpected.  At the onset, these 15 talents had a combined 2,110,183 Instagram followers. On top of this we directly recruited a further 15 booster influencers with a multi-million follower base of their own, for photo only posts.

With a few simple guidelines we gave them full creative freedom (and a professional crew) to film and produce their own series of video content for posting across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter channels. 15 girls set about creating 3 x 15 sec buzz-films each (45 videos) to generate bespoke engagement with their large installed base and to bring their own individual moments of true hunger to life. These films were flanked by hundreds of self-created product pics that allowed each influencer to express how they enjoy Oikos throughout the day.

Paid Media strategies amplified the content across Earned and Owned platforms, with content aggregators hosting the constant stream of content posts on the dedicated Oikos campaign page.

Results

This first ever purely Digital-led launch was a huge success for Oikos, exceeding both Campaign KPIs and Commercial targets

Campaign KPIs

A truly viral success. At a campaign level, the quirky user generated content exploded and spawned an unintended “yog-art” movement. Followers began creating their own artistic expressions with Oikos, influenced directly by our initiators and encouraged by Influencer shout-outs and tagged acknowledgments.

The fan base of our initial influencers multiplied exponentially. Mega-influencers, models and top tier talent all participated in the movement creating and curating more than 12,000 pieces of mimic content – films and photos. And all for free (estimated impressions of more than 80,000,000 during the campaign window).

Commerce KPIs

  • Achieved 140% of target sales objectives at launch
  • Launch costs were 1/10th of traditional media spend for Danone.
  • Maintained and grew CVS and GS listings beyond planned roll-out
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