Tapping into culture to build compelling creatives
The strength of the Kinder Master Brand in the UK meant it was being dismissed out of hand as a kids’ treat, rather than a sophisticated adult indulgence. Meanwhile, despite consistently high scores in taste tests, Kinder Bueno was falling short of expected sales targets. Just talking about taste wasn’t enough, we needed to tap into culture to really move the dial for Bueno.
In conjunction with Human Understanding Lab, TMW UNLIMITED used our EMMA framework to put the human at the heart of creative development. Through social media listening, focus groups and implicit creative testing, new creative routes that would resonate with key target audiences were created and subsequently validated for a target audience of women aged 25-35.
These insights fuelled a powerful new creative position for Kinder Bueno – “Now that’s Adulting”. A disruptive brand platform striking the right playful tone for the target audience. The campaign spanned broadcast, VOD, social, digital, PR and sampling and even saw us smartly hacking the search activity to put the brand front and centre at every moment.
Client
CAPABILITY
- CREATIVE
- HUMAN UNDERSTANDING LAB
Agency Team
Not just a kid’s snack!
To fuel the right creative solution, the Human Understanding Lab was engaged to help get under the skin of this target audience with the central objective being to identify a truly unique and powerful opportunity for the brand.
To supercharge the strategic and creative process, we leveraged insight at every stage, shaping and validating our approach. We used our EMMA framework to steer the insights, putting the human at the heart of our strategy.
Our research identified that this generation, more than any other, was victim to acute socio-economic dynamics – soaring house prices, high levels of debt – meaning they were staying at home for longer, getting married later and, effectively, entering ‘adulthood’ later than any generation before them. In fact, our findings highlighted that our audience only really considered themselves to be truly entering “adulthood” at 29 years of age.
Several creative routes were developed: Experience, Style, Magic & Grown Up. But neuroscience was the key to unlocking the optimum route. We applied Creative Connection to assess the campaign routes; tapping into greater insights than just what we say about comms during creative testing. Rather, through the power of neuroscience, we could understand how it made people feel. Through explicit testing like focus groups, the previously launched “Experience” route came out on top. Implicit insights captured through reaction time testing unearthed an alternative contender.
Strong associations with the “Grown Up” route came out in the test, and it is this scientific rigour that gave us the confidence to proceed with a creative solution that was outside of the box, but perfect for our target audience.
In terms of resulting creative, whilst ensuring we hit all the right notes tonally, for maximum impact we understood that taste opportunity was a critical element too. Using our ‘5 Golden Rules of Taste’ to ensure wherever and whenever we showed the product it was at its mouth-watering best – high in the frame, brightly lit, and with its decadent centre oozing with goodness – delivering all those taste cues that we knew would get our audience not only salivating but, importantly, reaching for a bar!
