Bournvita Li'l Champs: Right place at the right time - A

Touchpoint Study
Team Pinnacle
Source: The WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, Entrant, 2013
Downloaded from WARC

This case describes how Bournvita Li'l Champs (BVLC), a milk additive, used television, print and
social media to increase brand consideration in India. The campaign was based on the insight that
mothers, BVLC's target market, were influenced by non-television media and personal
recommendations when purchasing. This insight was important as BVLC's advertising had previously
been focused on television. This campaign used television, print, radio and digital advertising to
encourage people to nominate a mother who deserved appreciation for their nurturing. Information
about child development and the product, along with product samples were then sent to mothers who
were nominated. Research found that this new campaign mix increased brand advocacy and
consideration.

Team Pinnacle

Campaign details
Brand owner: Mondelez International
Agency: Pinnacle (A Madison Media Unit)
Brand: Bournvita Li'l Champs
Country: India
Channels used:Direct marketing, Internet – display, Internet – general, Magazines – consumer, Newspapers,
Outdoor, out-of-home, Print – general, unspecified, Product and other sampling, Public relations, Social media,
Television, Word of mouth and viral
Media budget: Up to 500k

Executive summary
This case study shows how brand penetration was driven by Bournvita Li'l Champs (BVLC), a milk additive,
amongst young mothers of children aged 2 to 5 years old, by educating them about the ingredients DHA and
whey protein in BVLC, and its role in their child's brain development during their early years.

Consumer studies had revealed that young mothers' path to purchase is not influenced by traditional media
alone. There are other interaction points that influence her decision over what food to buy her toddler. Thus, the
task was to identify the critical interventions that have higher ROI in driving sales vs standard awareness
medium.

A quantitative study to identify interaction points was carried out amongst 300 SEC A and B mothers across
Delhi and Chennai. It was revealed that non-TV media like print and personal recommendations played a
substantial part in influencing mothers' choice of malted food drinks (MFDs).

This finding effectively altered the media mix for BVLC from being solely TV-based, to being one that included
print and social media.

The brand track study saw that spontaneous brand consideration of BVLC went up by 17% over the previous
year, and that the imagery measure of BVLC (ie 'BVLC contains DHA') grew by 33% over the previous year.

Market background and business objectives

The milk food beverages and malted food drinks (MFD) category is highly competitive, with every player trying to
aggressively out-shout its competitors. The result is that it has become a typical SOV category (share of voice –
defined as the share of total category gross rating points, or GRPs, for a brand within a defined market during a
specified time period), and is over-reliant on TV. The media budgets are skewed in favour of TV by as much as
98%.

Several consumer researches have shown that the right food and nutrition for her child is the topmost priority for
the average Indian mother. With this in mind, mothers are always actively searching for credible information
across all possible media sources and not just TV alone.

Bournvita Li'l Champs (BVLC) is enriched with DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid, an Omega-3 fatty acid) which helps
in brain development. The key business task was to drive brand penetration of BVLC amongst young mothers of
children aged 2 to 5 years old, by educating them on the role of DHA in their child's brain development during
the critical early years, and also by informing them that BVLC contains DHA.

Thus, a key strategic imperative was to effectively communicate the DHA story to our audience of young
mothers, in order to influence their decision-making and purchase-behaviour process in relation to the MFD
category and BVLC.

Health and nutrition-related consumer studies have revealed that other mothers, paediatricians, teachers and
chemists are some of the key trusted influencers in the young mother's life, with respect to her child's health and
dietary needs.1, 2

This understanding needed to be validated, however, and there was a need to find out about all the other
sources of information and/or influences with which a young mother actively interacts to source this type of
information. The task was to find possible alternatives to a TV-led advertising strategy that is typical of the
category.
Thus was born the need to undertake this research study, to find the sources of information with which the
young mother interacted the most, and those that had the most influence on her path-to-purchase.

Hence the media task was to identify the critical interventions that have higher ROI in driving sales vs standard
awareness medium.

Insight and strategic thinking

Methodology

A quantitative study to identify interaction points was carried out amongst 300 SEC A and B mothers across
Delhi and Chennai.

A mandatory requirement for recruiting respondents was that they had to have children aged between 1 to 3
years old. Children across India are generally weaned off of mother's milk and moved onto milk in bottles at
around 1 to 2.5 years of age. The age of the respondents' children needed to be set in order for BVLC to
capture the first glass of milk that the child would drink after having been weaned off of its mother's milk.

Delhi (capital of India) and Chennai (another important metro city in India) were specifically chosen to represent
the full spectrum of beliefs held by mothers from across polarised cultures and regions, with regard to their
children consuming any milk-based additives. An example of this polarity came from the client's observations
regarding regional differences between markets in the North and South.

Mothers living in Northern India believed that milk-based additives merely added flavour to milk and its pre-
existing strength, whereas mothers in the South didn't believe that milk had any strength of its own – rather they
believed that the strength came from the milk-based additive.

Personal face-to-face interviews were conducted amongst 300 respondents in the last two weeks of December
2011.

Findings

The most critical revelation was that amongst the core target audience of young mothers, non-TV media like
print and personal recommendations (from friends and paediatricians alike) played a substantial part in
influencing their choice of MFDs.

There was a difference between the ways the consumer was actually interacting with the category, compared to
how it was thought they were interacting.

So instead of spending the majority of the budget on TV (as was the custom), the research actually showed us
that there were quite a few other media opportunities.

The pie chart below (fig 1.1) exhibits the various media sources that help young mothers gain information about
MFDs both generally (such as brand name and availability) and specific (such as flavour and price).

Category awareness (general and specific)

As illustrated below (in fig 1.2), some media sources helped to portray the MFD brands in an appealing way to
the mother, while other sources showed the mother that an MFD brand was best for her child. Most importantly,
there were also other media sources that helped the mother finally decide which MFD brand she should
purchase.

Brand appeal, evaluation and final decision

To sum up, the media windows that seemed to work for the MFD category across all stages of the road to
purchase were largely in the earned media space, eg recommendations from family, friends, other mothers,
chemists and paediatricians.

This marked a fundamental shift from the earlier paid media scenario (ie publicity gained through traditional
money-based advertising) to the earned media scenario (ie favourable publicity gained through efforts other
than traditional money-based advertising).

This also lends credence to one of the earlier hypotheses about mothers actively seeking nutrition-related
information from non-TV media.

This trend or shift from paid media to earned media was also noticed when BVLC was compared to competitive
brands within the same category, and across other competing baby-centric categories.

In fact, when respondents were asked where they had seen or heard advertising for both BVLC and another
competing brand within the same MFD category, earned media (ie recommendations from family and friends)
had the highest number of mentions (as shown in figure 1.3 below).

A similar trend was observed in a comparison between BVLC and a brand from another baby-led category,
where respondent mentions on both earned media (eg store staff) and owned media (eg recommendations from
other mothers) turned out to be similarly high (as shown in figure 1.4 below).

Ad awareness (BVLC vs directly competitive intra-category brand)

Ad awareness (BVLC vs inter-category competitive brand)

Implementation, including creative and media development
As a result of these findings, we were able to effectively alter the media mix for BVLC from being TV-based, to
being one that included print and social media.

This research revealed that advocacy from family, friends, doctors, paediatricians and other mothers were
strong points of information and influence on the young mother. This led to the conceptualisation and creation of
an impactful integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign, planning relevant activities on non-TV
media, print advertorials in both national and regional magazines, brand sampling in magazines and search-
engine marketing (SEM)).

Integrated marketing communication campaign

Family members and the friends of mothers were encouraged to call a toll-free number to nominate a mum they
think deserved appreciation for 'silent nurturing' in the development of their children. Buzz was created using TV,
print, radio and digital to encourage those nominating a mum to call the BVLC helpline.

They could either nominate themselves or their friend or relatives, and had to state their reasons for the
nomination. A callback was then set up to contact the referred friend.

A kit was then sent out containing the 'Badge of Honour' from her referred friend, a booklet marking milestones
(in WRT mental development) to engage children, a sample of Bournvita Li'l Champs (BVLC) and a form to
nominate two Shabaash (Kudos) mums. The best mum won a chance to meet a celebrity mum, Kajol, and the
child (Li'l Champ) got the opportunity to win a scholarship.

The integrated campaign convinced 90% of mothers about the importance of DHA in their child's brain
development, thereby inducing a positive disposition to BVLC amongst them

(source: internal client research post the media activity).

Performance against objectives

The research findings effectively altered the media mix for BVLC from being TV-based, to being one that
included print and social media.

This research revealed that advocacy from family, friends, doctors, paediatricians and other mothers were
strong points of information and influence on the young mother, thus we were able to conceptualise and create
an impactful integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign leveraging these very sources.

With the help of relevant activities planned on non-TV media (such as print advertorials in both national and
regional magazines like Grihashobha and Meri Saheli, and brand sampling in magazines like Kumudam,
amongst others, search engine marketing (SEM) and an impactful IMC campaign), 90% of the mothers became
convinced about the importance of DHA in their child's brain development, thereby inducing a positive
disposition amongst them towards BVLC (source: internal client research post the media activity).

The brand track research study post these activities saw consumer responses soar on two key parameters:
 Spontaneous brand consideration of BVLC rose by 17% over the previous year
The imagery measure of BVLC, ie 'BVLC contains DHA' rose by 33% over the previous year.

Lessons learned
It is important to identify touchpoints, but it is critical to understand the role different touchpoints play in the
decision-making process for the consumer. Different touchpoints influence different stages of the consumer
journey.

The role of the brand in this journey was to transition the consumer from the moment of influence to the moment
of decision.

Footnotes

1. Online Paediatric Information Seeking Among Mothers of Young Children: Results From a Qualitative Study
Using Focus Groups: Jay M Bernhardt and Elizabeth M Felter
2. Food Choice Influencers of Mothers of Young Children: Implications for Nutrition Educators: Carol Byrd-
Bredbenner and Jaclyn Maurer Abbot

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