2016 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

In Pakistan, Horlicks already convinced thousands of mothers in past years by providing powerful facts: Horlicks is scientifically proven to enhance the growth and development of children - it helps them grow tall, strong and sharp. No wonder mothers think it's good. But getting kids to demand it, ideally pestering their moms to buy more: that wasn't a reality yet. We identified the brand lacking appeal for children. Simply put: kids didn't think it was great, making it hard for moms to get them to have it every day. This had to change in order to substantially grow share and sales. Driving kids' love became the main objective. A branded entertainment platform with a state of the art mobile game at its heart was seen as the ideal tool to gamify everything Horlicks stands for. Moving from messaging mere facts to delivering engaging fiction - with Horlicks Nutriquest.

The Campaign

Horlicks is a nutrition-product with scientifically proven benefits for the development and growth of children. It can help children grow tall, strong and sharp. This attractive claim compelled many mothers in Pakistan. BUT: just because it's the right and good thing doesn't mean children automatically love it. In order to accelerate growth and drive brand-love, GSK had to move beyond winning moms with facts to exciting and engaging kids. Ultimately, we had to incite kids' pester-power. NutriQuest is the platform, story and game to do just that. The gamification of everything brand and product entail, packaging branded messages in a child-friendly way. It saw deployment through social and digital media, convincing moms to download it for kids. It accelerated sales through in-store activation and game zones. Special edition packs with unique codes unlocked further content. It's an immersive universe that built kids' love for Horlicks, increasing sales by whooping 25%.

Creative Execution

A powerful narrative binds together everything, tapping into the archetypical theme of good versus evil. The story: the Horlicks factory has been captured by the robot-army of an evil scientist wanting to stop children from growing tall, strong and sharp. Only kids can stop him - lead by a group of four child heroes. Hence the motto: Are you tall, strong and sharp enough to save the world? This became the call to action across all channels in three phases. First, storyline and characters were introduced in a cinematic trailer, with social media takeovers as well as on their dedicated website. Second, digital advertising and gamezones in malls were used to get kids to experience, download and play. Third, special edition packs with unique codes to unlock bonus arcade games closed the loop - pushed via in-game messaging, in-store theater and promotional TV, they drove sales.

Strategy and approach paid off in a big way. In the core campaign period (June-August 2015) all predefined metrics and KPI for impressions, reach, conversion, downloads and active engagement were exceeded by far (over-indexing at astonishing +250 to +375). Importantly, the core audience of children appreciated this effort as proven in social media sentiment, active participation and game ratings - NutriQuest consistently achieved 4+ app ratings & reviews across both App Store & Google Play. And finally, the content and platform did more than merely entertain: they yielded a 25% increase in sales directly related to the campaign - measured in uptake of special edition packs (and redemption rates of codes) in participating outlets. Based on these outstanding results, the Horlicks NutriQuest branded entertainment property is currently seeing expanded roll out in other geographies and is earmarked for sequels in the near future. (Detailed results are supplied as confidential information for the jury only.)