Background

For more than 20 years, Asian Home Gourmet has brought Asia’s favourite recipes out of Chinatown and into 8000+ supermarkets in 41 countries. Cerebos Australia took over the distribution of the Asian Home Gourmet brand domestically in October 2008. After making the product available in Coles, Woolworths, IGA and many Asian supermarkets, the challenge was to increase consumer awareness of the brand and its authenticity credentials.

Brand: Asian Home Gourmet
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Media Agency: Match Dialogue
Digital Sales Agency: AD2ONE

Objective

Following its appointment as distributor, Cerebos consulted its media strategy agency, Match Dialogue, about the need to develop an aspirational brand campaign for Asian Home Gourmet. The brief was to build brand awareness among supermarket shoppers.

Strategy

The challenge was to align with a media property that shared the same core values as Asian Home Gourmet. The digital environment was identified as a key medium where the target audience were spending their time and would also give us the ability to micro-target the campaign to specific Asian countries, said Harmony Kwong, communications strategist at Match Dialogue.

The obvious solution was Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet has evolved to become a major internet travel publisher globally, mirroring consumers shift to seek travel advice online rather than from their trusty travel guides.

LonelyPlanets commitment to the independent travel experience and editorial independence are some of the reasons why LonelyPlanet.com attracts over five million visitors per month. The site acts as a connection between travellers and Lonely Planet and both are bound by a passion for hitting the road and the experiences that brings.

LonelyPlanet.com/Australia is tailored for Australian travellers and is segmented by destinations. It features travel information, tips and advice for over 30 Asian countries, including Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, China and India, all of which Cerebos Foods was interested in targeting for the Asian Home Gourmet brand campaign.

We really identified with Lonely Planets philosophy of being the guidebook to authentic travel experiences and its reputation for helping consumers find their way through an exciting journey of discovery. We believed that travellers who are interested in travelling to Asia would also want to recreate the sensory experiences of Asia at home, said Justin Lam, group brand manager for Asian Home Gourmet.

Execution

AD2ONE, who handle Lonely Planets digital sales, worked with Match Dialogue and Cerebos to create a relaunch campaign to build brand awareness for Asian Home Gourmet in the Australian market.

The Lonely Planet Tastes of Asia campaign started in February 2009 and ran until the start of July. It featured a number of different colourful and inspiring themes for advertisements which were found on the homepage and on pages for Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, China and India. The ads led visitors to a microsite, which included a downloadable travel guide with content about the country and the local cuisine for Asian destinations. 

Results

• Time spent on microsite: 5 minutes+
• 8000+ Mini travel guide downloads
• CTR from microsite to Asian Home Gourmet site: 8%
• The concurrently run sampling campaign ran out of stock eight weeks before completion, and
• Approximately 35% share of voice on the Lonely Planet home page for Cerebos/Asian Home Gourmet.

The campaign drove substantial uplift during the relaunch and was able to sustain a double digit baseline increase (20%+) compared to pre-campaign levels. Approximately five million run-of-site targeted display ads enticed Lonely Planet users to check out the culinary guide based on a specific destination they were viewing.

The company was particularly impressed with the ability to micro-target to each Asian country as well as the measurability of each specific element to the campaign.

Lonely Planet online complemented the Asian Home Gourmet brand perfectly and combined with the expertise of both Match Dialogue and AD2ONE, this digital campaign has contributed greatly to our goals for 2009, said Lam.