#AsiaeCommerceAwards highlight: Nestle Thailand banks on PR to drive up online sales

Nestle Thailand won big at this year’s Asia eCommerce awards taking home a gold for Best eCommerce Campaign – content marketing and two bronze for Best eCommerce Campaign – Influencers and Best Integrated eCommerce Campaign. The team wowed judges with its campaign “NESCAFÉ Nurturing the stronger bond”. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic hits countries world-wide, Thailand’s unsung heroes were hard at work, protecting the safety of its people. NESCAFÉ, Thailand’s number one coffee brand with a long presence of over 46 years decided to deliver its brand promise of “Nurturing Stronger Bonds” by celebrating Thailand’s ‘Unsung Heroes’ through its campaign.  

Challenge

To show its support towards the Unsung Heroes of the Border Patrol Police in rural neighborhoods, the Nestlé team wanted to celebrate Thailand’s Unsung Heroes by going beyond its usual brand marketing campaign on International Coffee Day to spark a positive social movement for Thai people during these unprecedented times. Whilst the campaign allowed consumers to share their encouraging message and provide an opportunity for their hand-written heartfelt messages to be placed on an exclusive NESCAFÉ Bonding Set that will be delivered to the unsung heroes in the rural neighbourhood, the challenge for the team was to ensure that the campaign would be well and widely received while achieving its desired PR hit rate.

Strategy

To ensure that the campaign ran successfully, as well as to raise awareness for the campaign and reach its desired PR target, the team focuses its efforts on four key aspects:

1. Consumer engagement: The team invited Bangkok residents to write personal message to the Border Patrol Police on the NESCAFÉ RED Mug by placing its roadshow at seven different location with high foot traffic during the last two weeks of September.
2. Employee Contribution: The exclusive NESCAFÉ Bonding Set features one-year supply of NESCAFÉ products and a heart-written mugs that were packed by the Nestle Employees.
3. Logistic Partner: NESCAFÉ reached out to Thailand’s largest eCommerce platform to join efforts to deliver the NESCAFÉ Bonding Set to the Border Patrol Police as a form of gratitude and appreciation.
4. Media Amplification: Nestlé partnered with Lazada to push out co-marketing and PR efforts to encourage press and publishers to promote the social movement event.

Execution

The event had two major components: the three-part PR release and the NESCAFÉ X Lazada collaboration.

The first part of the PR release encouraged people to visit the NESCAFÉ Roadshow booths to write message of appreciation for the Border Patrol Police. Consumer nationwide could also enjoy a 25THB discount on Lazada platform with any purchase made from LazMart and NESCAFÉ official store starting from 1^st October 2020.  

The second part of the PR release thank participants and consumers for their support while promoting the NESCAFÉ Bonding Sets that were packed with care by its employees. The PR release also promoted the offline event that will be taking place on 1 October 2019.

The last part of the PR release covered the remarkable performance of the offline event at the heart of Bangkok on World Coffee day while concurrently promoting and appreciating the support it received from its logistic partner to deliver the NESCAFÉ Bonding Sets.

For the NESCAFÉ X Lazada collaboration, NESCAFÉ had a platform takeover on Lazada with standard banner ads shown on Lazada as well as five live streams that promoted the campaign.

Result

The campaign was well received by the public with a PR Message Hit rate of 96% and  prominent coverage across 16 TV programs. The campaign achieved a reach of 28 Million with 1.2 Million engagement and a ROI of 38 times. Lastly, with the campaign, NESCAFÉ saw an increase in its online sales by 75%.