2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

Bugles was once the crowned king of crisps of the region, however in later years it started to face a standstill in market share and a gradual decline in sales. We understood that while the brand was still popular amongst the older generation, Gen Z consumers didn’t share the same sentiment. That’s where the idea to launch a social media campaign that would resonate with this younger audience was born. The objective of the campaign was to reintroduce the brand to the market with a new face and packaging, and ultimately increase brand awareness, sales and market share, and generate brand-love and loyalty across the board.

Describe the strategy

We needed to gain the trust of a new, younger generation of communiholics; who were born swiping and savvier on social media than any generation we’d seen before. This meant re-defining Bugles’ role on social. Using various R&I sources, including: GWI, Arab Youth Survey & We Are Social x Hootsuite’s Global Digital Report, we studied Saudi Gen Z social and digital behaviour - crafting an audience-first strategic approach. In other words, we had to make our social approach more about them - and less about Bugles. So we identified our opportunity, to breathe life into the brand on a platform that 47% of our consumers were using, as a means of fun and escapism during a very uncertain year; TikTok.

Describe the execution

We began by giving our audience the thing they longed for most, a film that nurtured their desire to creatively co-create, through a branded TikTok challenge that encouraged them to do so. We created a catchy musical score and paired it with a vertical, TikTok-ready film designed with our audience’s online behavior in mind; riddled with dank memes, high-energy dancing & familiar references, resulting in the least ad-like ad on the platform. The goal of our film was to not only grab attention in those essential first few seconds, but maintain it throughout its entirety. Every second kept our audience guessing; wondering which reference they were going to see next, whilst activating their imaginations as they started planning their own creative responses. We intentionally avoided saying the brand's name and simply allowed clever product-usage to speak for itself, bringing Bugles into the minds, hearts & news feeds of our audience.

List the results

30% increase in sales & achieved its highest ever market share, 34% lift in brand awareness, 23% in ad recall lift, 1.2 BILLION views on the TikTok Hashtag Challenge, 168,000 videos created using the unique hashtag, 1,300 consumers used our unique jingle, The 15 second video achieved an average watch per person of 16.33 seconds, which is 24% higher than the market benchmark (13.1s) also, meaning that consumers watched it more than once, 64% of our audience who viewed the video on FB & IG completed it - exceeding channel completion rates benchmarks by 93%, 11 pieces of earned PR including being featured in Campaign Middle East’s top 20 Digital & Social campaigns of the year.