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Case study - Maltesers

Campaign overview
We were approached by MediaCom to create a long-term partnership with Maltesers as part of their cross-media campaign. They wanted to reach internet users in an environment relevant to the Maltesers brand and its core product values and associations. The key to success was integrating the brand in the right online environments, reflecting the offline activity and relevant product messages.

Campaign objectives
Maltesers set the following objectives for their campaign:

1. To increase consideration and frequency of purchase
2. Reinforce awareness of the Maltesers tagline 'The lighter way to enjoy chocolate'
3. Build a consumer association between Maltesers and TV viewing

Campaign strategy
The campaign ran from March to December 2004 around our TV channel and associated content. Integrated sponsorship positions such as mastheads, editorial content in key targeted areas, a sponsorship promo box, competitions and newsletters were all utilised.

The creation of a strong brand association between Maltesers and our TV content underpinned the campaign. Our portal was chosen as a partner owing to the rich quality of the TV related content and ongoing creative consultancy that make the association a successful reality.

In order to measure the impact of the sponsorship against the campaign objectives, we commissioned TNSi to conduct an independent brand effectiveness study. The study tracked the campaign's success over the course of the activity through 4 distinct waves of research.

TNSi's omnibus survey was used to incorporate offline activity, tracking the non-Internet users to establish what online was contributing above and beyond offline activity.

With long-term activity of this nature we were able to conduct consultative, mid-campaign assessments to allow ideas for the remainder of the campaign to be developed.

The Results
Online
To date online has been under utilised by the FMCG sector as an advertising medium. The results, however, clearly demonstrate that Maltesers partnership with us was a great success and how all of the campaign objectives were achieved:

1. Product purchase up by 50% and consideration to purchase up 20%*
2. Tagline awareness 'The lighter way to enjoy chocolate' saw an uplift of 10%*
3. Association between Maltesers and TV viewing achieved a 62%* awareness, and all respondents agreed the appropriateness between Maltesers and our TV content

Online v Offline
It was demonstrated that compared to non-internet users, our users have:

1. Higher brand awareness - prompted brand awareness is 6%* amongst Internet users
2. Higher advertising awareness - Internet users 78%* more likely to recall Maltesers advertising
3. More likely to have recently purchased - 52%* more likely to have bought Maltesers of late
4. Greater intent to purchase - 14%* higher for Internet users

*significant at 99% confidence interval