Quick-fire covid consumer insight campaign
Brief
Gum is an impulse buy, and a category that’s been on the decline — particularly during times like lockdown, where consumers are more likely to restrict their purchases to products they see are more essential.
We were asked to develop a campaign that would improve in-store and POS conversions for Extra’s core flavours around three key territories: freshening at home, and while out and about in a mask; focus and concentration while working or studying at home; and boredom snacking.
And just to add a little extra challenge, Mars asked us to turn the campaign around in just under 12 weeks. Because sure, why not?
Solution
Lockdown was not exactly a fun-fest, let’s be honest. But, it was at least a good opportunity for Mars to present gum in a new way to Covid-weary consumers: with masks widely compulsory, who wanted to spend time breathing in their own stale breath? And the never-ending Zoom calls: gum was a great way to combat dry mouth from endless chats.
We’ve worked with Mars for a long time, and we understand what their teams need. As a result, we were able to respond quickly to shifts in the market — even huge ones, as we saw in 2020 — and develop brand activations that hit the button.
We created a European toolkit with full assets and fantastically crafted messaging by stellar copywriter Nigel Roberts. The pay-off? A huge, flexible and timely range of collateral which was ready and able to push gum sales over a wide range of territories.
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“Straight Forward not only know and love our brand as much as we do, but you also bring an intellectual curiosity to how you consider and deliver solutions to our business challenges.”
