Our clients

YAKULT LAUNCH IN BEIJING

Destination

Yakult is a famous Japanese brand of "pro-biotic" drink, with more than 75 years history and now sold in 27 countries worldwide. In China, Yakult is distributed in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai and in 2006 was launched into Beijing. The main barriers faced by Yakult are that the lacto segment is really small as Chinese people are not really used to consume dairy based products. Although there is increasing adoption of dairy product like yoghurt, especially in middle class households, local produced products tends to have a lower price (Vs. Yakult which is perceived as relatively expensive). In addition, while this same group is starting to look for more health based nutrition there is still a long way to go in education for pro-biotics.

Direction

MindShare's challenge was to successfully launch Yakult in Beijing and achieve the client's sales objectives by generating brand awareness and communicating the product benefits (good for health) with a comparatively small budget meaning innovation and standout would be key.

Design & Delivery

MindShare recommended that with a smaller budget, in this instance, it was better to run a shorter, harder hitting campaign to build high impact Vs consumers. The "repeat purchase" nature of the brand would then ensure that sales were maintained afterwards once consumers had trialed. As a result, a multi-media campaign was planned including TV, print and OOH (metro and bus advertising), allowing frequent and intense reach Vs the target on different occasions.
To ensure the budget worked hard as possible, MindShare used creative negotiations and execution to communicate the product benefits and to link Yakult attributes to a healthy life.
- For example, in newspapers, MindShare negotiated a package deal (a combination of various ad sizes, advertorials and "brand stories") to maximize exposure with the small budget.
- For example, in magazines, MindShare used the horoscope page (which the female target was very interested in) to communicate that caring about your health is as important as caring about your fortune.

Evaluation

As a result of the activities, ad awareness reached over 45%. More importantly though, sales rose well over client expectations (by more than 40% period on period) meaning business targets were exceeded and a very successful launch.