Insight
People wouldn’t normally think of eating ice cream unless they’re out and about on a hot day, or see someone else having one. To influence this impulse behaviour in favour of Wall’s, Mindshare tapped into one of the largest Malaysian traditions: Balik Kampung, where families living in KL travel back to their hometown for the festival. Getting stuck on major highways for hours makes families crave for refreshment breaks along the way.
With smartphone penetration at 70%, most drivers in KL use Waze, a GPS Navigation App (4.5mil+ users). When it comes to festive travelling, everyone uses Waze to find the least congested route to one’s hometown. Naturally, it is THE MOST ‘attention grabbing screen’ during these travels. The agency created a campaign based solely on Waze to entice travellers with tempting messages and point them to the nearest outlets along the highway where Wall’s is sold.
Strategy
Around 15% of Malaysia’s population lives in Kuala Lumpur and surrounding areas since it is the country’s business centre. Most Malaysians living in Kuala Lumpur travel to their home towns during festival seasons. With car penetration being over 90% driving is the preferred mode of transport. This mass travelling by road has been going on for a long time and is part of a Malaysian tradition called ‘Balik Kampung’ (going home).
During such holidays, Malaysians travel with the entire family together. It is also a moment of bonding between the family members. These annual travels are part of Family Folklore & are recounted countless times.
Everyone travels on specific days during these holidays leading to severe traffic congestion.
These festive holidays are also the time when the ice-cream as well as other refreshment category sales peak.
While stuck in jams, people crave for a quick ice-cream or cola or coffee refreshment break with the entire family. Mindshare had to find a way to influence this impulse in favour of Wall's ice-cream.
The brand had previously done promotions during the festival season (out of home, retail) but this was the first time that it used mobile as a centre-piece of the entire campaign.
The campaign was based solely on a GPS Navigation App- Waze to induce travellers with tempting messages and guiding them to the nearest outlets along the highway where Wall’s is sold. Through the app, we’re able to know the location of drivers and serve customised messages when they are within a certain radius from a Wall’s outlet.
Execution
Nov-Dec 2013 was a period when a lot of festival holidays were happening in quick succession (Deepavali, Awal Muharram, Christmas and New Year).Thus it was the ideal period to activate the campaign.
Mindshare created Branded Location Pins on Waze showcasing the Wall’s retail outlets like Shell petrol stations.
Through the Waze app, it could detect users who are within 3km of petrol stations and R&R stops, where Wall’s is sold. If drivers were stationary for more than a minute, indicating that they are stuck in traffic, they were served customised messages such as: “Take a break & visit your nearest Shell station to enjoy Wall’s Ice Cream” or ‘Refresh your journey with a Wall’s Ice-Cream’. It also enticed them with sales promo offers like: ‘Win Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with purchase of a Wall’s Cornetto. All this created the impulse to drive to the Wall’s outlet instead of spending time being stuck in traffic.
Upon clicking on the Wall’s message, drivers were voice-directed to the nearest Wall’s outlet. The agency time targeted this activity around afternoon time which is the most suitable for ice-cream consumption. 50 locations across major highways around KL were part of this campaign.
Results
The ice-cream category had to compete for the share of voice with other refreshment categories with much larger traditional media budget and hence it wanted to create a cost effective model of impulse based advertising that led directly to sales and which can be used by Wall's Ice-Cream for a long time in the future.
- 5+ million people saw the Wall's location pin
- 49,000 consumers clicked on the Wall's Waze location and were directed towards the nearest Wall's outlets (Shell Petrol Stations)
- Wall’s sold 130,000 ice-creams through these outlets featured on Waze and sales were 13% higher during the campaign period.
Most importantly it made the ‘Balik Kampung’ Journey for Malaysian families a little more enjoyable!