Nestlé Smoovlatté: Nescafé: From Tianyi With Love
Nescafé had lost its appeal among the youth because of new trendy drinks like bubble tea. Growth in the bottled coffee category has been 30% slower, and Nescafé needed to revitalize brand love by creating true innovation in youth culture. To revitalize love for Nescafé, we had to demonstrate Nescafé’s innovation and understanding of youth culture.
Insight & Strategy
The key segment for Nescafé to win over was the post-95 generation. Not only was Nescafé underperforming in this segment, but they also have strong spending power. They spend 45% more on food and beverage every month than older audience, and plan to up-spend on the category in the upcoming year (Source: Nielsen).
Most of them make up China’s second generation of the one-child policy launched in the 1980s. This means they grew up alone, without any siblings or cousins. As a result, they long for companionship. In their solitude, they have been captivated by virtual idols, or vocaloids. Vocaloids are like anime characters, except their singing voices are synthesized by computers.
This makes vocaloids truly open source. Fans of vocaloids can upload any song they want at any time, and vocaloids can perform for them using an algorithm.
These highly interactive, ‘anytime and anywhere’ companions, have provided young people more closeness and care than real idols. To post-1995s, these virtual idols are more than mere fictional characters. They are revered and indispensable friends.
To win young people’s love, Nescafé partnered with China’s top virtual idol: Luo Tianyi.
Execution
To tease the campaign, we targeted Luo Tianyi’s fans through the China’s biggest youth culture website, Bilibili and aired a bespoke Luo Tianyi Nescafé video during Double 11, China’s biggest shopping festival.
To unlock Luo Tianyi’s personal sweet voice greetings, fans could scan a QR code on a Nescafé bottle.
Once scanned, Tianyi showed up in a H5 page, inviting fans to interact with her through games. Tianyi’s messages were customized based on location, weather, mood, horoscope and time of the day.
Furthermore, consumers could share the sweet greetings on WeChat, China’s top social platform – encouraging posts and discussions with friends.
On Douyin, China’s top short video app, we created a filter with Tianyi’s music video so that fans can interact with her and be in the same frame with her.
Results
With a category that has been getting smaller as trendier alternatives thrive, Nescafé had to regain appeal among young consumers – therefore increasing consumption and leading growth.
By leveraging a cultural icon, Luo Tianyi, we brought content and audiences together. The campaign reached almost 87 million fans on Weibo, China’s top micro-blogging app, because of a personalized experience powered by data and culture. Our branded song’s impressions hit 4 million just in 2 days with 240 branded emojis downloaded. Almost 87 million fans were targeted on Weibo. As a result, Nescafé significantly its raised sales.