How Unilever turned to TV to rejuvenate its Jif business
Jif has not been advertised in Arabia due to lack of focus on the brand. Due to other business priorities the real potential for Jif in Arabia had not been fully explored or exploited. The brand team headed by Mohammed Chisti put together a road map to get Jif back on track.
The Jif in Arabia brand is described by Christi as having "an awareness in the 90's and usage in the 50's".
"For consumers it is a brand that delivers on tough cleaning," he says. "The key to growth was to focus behind the core. The brand is loved by our consumers and dreaded by our competition including P&G, Clorox, Reckitts and, potentially, Henkel."
Advertising was identified as a key growth driver for the brand and to help set the stage for future innovation from Jif. However due to years of funds being used tactically, mainly below-the-line year, to help hit sales targets, the brand was never given a chance to shine in communication and build brand equity. So in 2005, the brand team changed the way it did things. The focus for the first six months was on achieving sales growth with simple promotions that would sell in and out fast.
This improved turnover gave the team the right to approach management to propose ful-scale advertising. The team were given the green light to proceed and leveraging the Unilever negotiation power, its in-house media team negotiated deals so that this on-air advertising spend equated to close to $4 million. This enabled the brand to dominate share of voice in household cleaning.
The challenge then became what to put on air. The brand team had a very limited budget and wanted to maximize its share-of-voice, so it decided on short material (10-15 seconds).
The team explored the showreels with its agency and noticed that in other parts of the world Jif cream cleaner had moved from being a tough cleaning brand to being a brand that brought enjoyment to the home, which was almost a 'feminisation' of the brand. The team, says Christi, decided to be "bold and courageous" and "stick to the tough cleaning core message that our consumers appreciate".
The team found four copies that it felt were usable, from the UK and Arabia. The team, working with its agency (Lowe Dubai), then pieced together the footage of these in to two copies (Oil-15sec and Skater-20sec). The Oil copy showed tough cleaning and this was edited to 15 sec to ensure high GRPs.
The Skater copy highlighted the core elements of the brand - tough cleaning without scratching and the extended use of the product on surfaces in the kitchen, a key area of potential growth.
Both copies were re-recorded with the soundtracks and voice-overs in Arabic, English and Hindi with the selling line 'To Remove The Toughest Stains...Always Use Jif'.
Another consideration was that Ramadan was fast approaching. Due to the family unit interacting more in this month cleaning consumption is up by almost three times as consumers want their guests to come to a clean home.
In order to capitalize upon this and overcome the media clutter during this month, the team also shot a 10 sec copy and 2x5 sec (to be aired back to back) for $10,000 that stated 'This Ramadan... Leave The Cleaning To Jif'. These copies highlighted cultural elements that consumers would be able to relate to (moon, music, henna, Ramadan sky).
With the copies now complete the team worked on a media plan with the Skater and Ramadan copies airing on more conservative channels and the Oil copy on modern shows and channels. Copies were broadcast from September onwards and based on an ongoing aggressive media plan.
Results? Christi says Jif is 34% on last year (when the brand had flat growth). So in less than a year, the brand team has accelerated the growth of Jif, with the whole communication programme put together in just three weeks. Also the brand now has a platform from which to drive the business forward.
"It is on the right track in terms of its strategic direction, innovation path and future communication," says Christi, "and the team intends to continue to make it a great story in Arabia."
© Gulf Marketing Review 2006
