Huggies: Case study

Credits & Description:

Brand KIMBERLEY CLARK
OGILVY JOHANNESBURG Johannesburg, South Africa Entrant Company
OGILVY JOHANNESBURG Johannesburg, South Africa Idea Creation
Morné van Emmenes, John Clark Kimberly-Clark Client
Pete Case Ogilvy South Africa Creative
Mariana O’Kelly Ogilvy Johannesburg Creative
Catherine Wanliss, Gregory King Ogilvy Johannesburg Creative
Catherine Wanliss, Stephanie van Niekerk, Antoinette Fourie Ogilvy Johannesburg Creative
Suzanne Jenner, Chantelle dos Santos, Jade Amic Ogilvy Johannesburg Creative
Amorí Gerber, Elzanri Kirsten, Kiara Pandaram Ogilvy Johannesburg Creative
Pierre du Plessis, Corli de Kock Ogilvy Johannesburg Digital
Nicholas Bastiaanse Ogilvy Johannesburg Digital
Dhuven Thathiah, Abhishek Jannawar Kimberly-Clark Development
Graham Shillington, Tim Smith, Nic Louw, Lisa Boonzaaier Brand Foundry Development
Christopher Marais, Graham Talbot Ogilvy Johannesburg Development
Tanya Taylor, Anè Wolmarans, Nadine Mohammed, Tracey Edwards, Lauren McInnes, Ca Ogilvy Johannesburg Account Management
Debbie Dannheisser, Steph Powell, Helen D’Hotman Ogilvy Johannesburg Production
Refilwe Mashatole Ogilvy Johannesburg Traffic
Matthys Boshoff, Adam Thal, Madelyn Ludi The Star Film Company Production
Tom Marais The Star Film Company Cinematography
Joe Erasmus, Michele Wilson, Nic Young, Schalk van der Merwe The Upstairs Ludus Production
James O’Sullivan The Upstairs Ludus Editing
James Alexander Ogilvy Johannesburg Voice Artist
Louis Enslin, Theo Potgieter Produce Sound Audio
Chris Lockhart, Hendrik Kok, Nic Van Rensburg, Penny Tilleard, Robyn Gough Palme Masters & Savant Animation
Neill Pretorius Ogilvy Johannesburg Animation
Ernst van der Merwe, Abigail Schilperoort, Tumi Mehale, Jemma Wilson, Courtney F Creative Spark Social Media Agency
Refilwe Makamedi, Carla de Araujo Sabio Communications PR
Dylan Robberts MEC Media
Shaun Cleland, Kate Campbell Flic Animation
OGILVY JOHANNESBURG Johannesburg, South Africa Entrant Company
OGILVY JOHANNESBURG Johannesburg, South Africa Idea Creation

Synopsis
Our situation/brief/objectives
In a market dominated by the competitor (where Huggies is the number two brand) we were tasked to drive trial of the Huggies active baby diaper range and show we have the best nappy for moving babies, in order to switch competitor-loyalists to our brand, and ultimately grow brand penetration amongst middle-income moms.
Our challenge
Once moms have bought into the rival diaper brand (usually at the newborn baby stage), they rarely reconsider their choice of brand. Instead they go into purchasing auto-pilot, and simply continue sizing up through their favourite brand’s range of products, until their child no longer requires diapers. We needed to snap them out of this and induce trial of our diapers, because trial in this market generally always leads to conversion.

Strategy
We wanted to snap our middle-income moms out of competitor-brand purchasing auto-pilot by creating a reconsideration trigger at the active baby stage. To do this, we wanted to: 1) catch them in a place they were spending most of their active media-consumption time, ie. online; and 2) show them something completely surprising about their baby, consequently making them aware of a need they never knew their baby had. We then wanted to position our diaper-range as the only answer to this need.

Once we’d settled on the idea of The World’s First Baby Marathon, our media planning became about letting moms experience the real-time race as it unfolded online, as opposed to just a release of branded content. We chose to let our media timings be dictated by the babies’ real-time movement data, retargeting and building our audience from teaser to wrap-up phase.

Relevancy
Diaper campaigns typically consist of a TV commercial, print and instore messaging. Not surprising it’s difficult to get moms to pay attention to a competitor brand, as everything becomes ‘wallpaper’. Yet our moms actually spend a lot of time online, either on social, or actively seeking out info about their baby on relevant websites.

This, coupled with the insight that babies can move over 3km* a day (*New York University), led us to The World’s First Baby Marathon – an idea that, due to its very nature (a real-time online race), could only be executed via a game-changing channel strategy.

Outcome
• The marathon led to a 28.9% increase in diaper sales

• It generated a 29:1 return on investment

• There were over 8.4 million views of the campaign

• It resulted in over R2.4 million in earned PR

• The click-through rate was 194% higher than industry average

• Plus the marathon trended within 10 minutes of launch for 9 hours

Execution
Teaser start-date: 28 August 2017.

Marathon start-date: 18 September 2017.

The marathon unfolded in real time for 13 days, with the first baby crossing the finish line in 5.8 days. The campaign was promoted across multiple digital and social platforms (Facebook, search, mobile/premium display and YouTube) for 9 weeks in total. This included a three-week teaser phase to build our audience, two weeks of real-time marathon, and a four-week sum-up of the campaign. During our teaser phase, we also used limited TV and cinema support, as well as targeted instore promotion. The campaign consisted of our campaign page, 1 X 75 second promo film, 3 X 10 second teaser films, various promoted ‘teaser’ social posts (profiles of our four babies, baby warm-ups, a countdown timer, etc) and an instore and online competition where parents could win branded Huggies World’s First Baby Marathon gear for both themselves and their babies.

Campaign Description
Our insight:
Babies move way more than their parents realise – over 3km* a day. *New York University
Our execution:
The World’s First Baby Marathon. From Huggies.
To prove just how much babies can move in a day, to put the comfort and fit of Huggies diapers to the test, and to thereby clearly demonstrate why these nappies are the best choice for active little ones, we chose four babies and gave them an audacious goal: 21 adult-length kilometers.
Our custom-made distance-tracking device:
Thanks to the data collected by the babies’ custom-designed distance-tracking devices, our little athletes were able to race one another on our online race course, in real time, from the comfort of their own homes. Their progress was packaged as a series of highlights videos, which were released across multiple digital platforms, until the first baby crossed the finish line 5.8 days later.