Insight
The 75 year old Kissan brand is synonymous with tomato ketchup in India. However, commoditisation within the ketchup category was causing Kissan to lose relevance among consumers.
In a market where any red sauce was considered as tomato ketchup, despite having only part tomato content, consumers were switching to discounted brands and Kissan was losing share.
In this scenario, Kissan launched its claim “made from 100% real tomatoes” to differentiate itself and inspire consumer preference.
Let’s face it though, in a commoditised, low-involvement category, no one really bothers.
Hence, the brand needed to build credibility and leverage on the use of 100% real ingredients in its product. Only this would create a point of differentiation, thereby driving brand preference.
Strategy
In an urbanised lifestyle such as that of our target audience, there is not much that is “100% real”. Artificiality fills our lives. This is especially true for kids who are mostly limited to indoor games and virtual worlds.
So how does one convert this e-claim into a belief?
The magic word is “experience”.
The challenge, therefore, was to create the experience of “100% real tomatoes in the ketchup bottle” in this urbanised world.
Enter the big idea, Kissanpur (or “farmers land”), which was our way of bringing the farm land to the modern urban household.
Kissanpur would be a journey of real, natural experiences; where what you grow is what you eat.
Kissanpur was about making kids and moms grow their own tomato plants in their homes and finally invite them to bring their tomato plants to a central location to create the “world’s first ever crowd sourced tomato farm”. These tomatoes would be the future ingredients for their very own customised Kissan tomato ketchup bottles.
Execution
The campaign began with 2.5 million households receiving tomato seeds with their morning newspapers, encouraging kids to plant the seeds and farm at home.
Simultaneously, 80,000 kids from 55 schools across Delhi and Mumbai were greeted with tomato seeds, so they too could join the Kissanpur journey.
It takes 3 months to grow a tomato plant. Mindshare’s challenge was to keep kids’ enthusiasm high for this entire duration.
So the agency built a microsite, www.kissanpur.co.in, where it shared tips on how to grow tomato plants. Mothers and kids shared pictures of their plants as they grew, and Kissan cheered them through social media, e-mailers, SMS, digital updates and blogs, as well as messages played on Radio as well. When fruits began to ripen, Kissan showed them a vision of what their tomato plant could look like and took them for a trip to a real tomato farm!
Mindshare then launched a contest through digital and print promising to reward top 100 participants with ketchup bottles made with their own tomatoes.
The journey climaxed with the ultimate experience: A visit to their very own Kissanpur, the world’s first “crowd sourced tomato farm”. Over 45,000 children and their mothers (in some cases, parents) attended the week-long event, where they brought nearly 7,000 tomato plants and re-planted them together. They learnt how tomatoes are used to make natural tomato ketchup and saw for themselves that Kissan tomato ketchup was indeed “made from 100% real tomatoes”. The winners were rewarded with customised ketchup bottles.
Results
Consumer Engagement Measures:
• 2nd most trended topic on Twitter during campaign launch.
• 191,297 unique visits to www.kissanpur.co.in.
• 175,000 children and their parents engaged online, at schools and outdoor events.
• 150,000 new fans on the Kissan Facebook page.
• 3.5 million seeds distributed.
• 8 million consumers within the target group reached through media.
• Earned a PR of approximately $70,000.
Brand Results:
• Achieved 31% value growth and 23% volume after the campaign.
• Average consumption increase by 7% for India’s largest ketchup brand which had a declining market share, that too in a commodity market.
• Share of Endorsement of 49% on ‘made from 100% real tomatoes’; a positive differentiation created for Kissan Ketchups.