Challenge
Whirlpool has been on a journey to move their KitchenAid brand from a short-term, sales-led mentality to a longer-term brand-building strategy. Their mission was to increase their brand power by creating an ad campaign demonstrating how the brand helps consumers make the most out of everyday occasions, tapping into the more emotive space around sharing good times with loved ones. They also wanted to reinforce the message around the brand’s ‘best in class’ performance.
Approach
Their brand-led strategy was founded on results from a Kantar Brand Equity study, which showed that being suitable for everyday cooking was a key driver of brand power - not a territory KitchenAid was known for. To make sure the brand stood out in this new territory we worked with KitchenAid to test different creative routes for an ad campaign across TV, digital and radio ads. From their initial strategy, the team took an insight-driven approach to understanding and targeting their consumer’s needs.
Insight
The results showed the need to be more meaningful and get closer to the consumer by showcasing the practical functionality and ease of use. We recommended a simple, focused narrative, that showcases the different product applications. Throughout each stage of creative development, Whirlpool made sure they checked in with consumers to ensure the message they were communicating was overcoming the barrier of the brand as a tool for baking alone. The result was an ad that won second place in Kantar’s Creative Effectiveness Awards 2022 from over 1,500 digital ads tested that year.
‘Make to Stand Out’ spoke to consumers about KitchenAid in a new and relatable way, it kept the product as the focal point, showcasing its functionality in a quirky, close up and lively execution at a time when home cooking was becoming more popular than ever.
Impact
As a relatively small market for KitchenAid, Australia was used as a test bed for their new brand-led marketing strategy. The campaign was launched on TV and digital channels along-side the national marketing campaigns in all other states. The test state experienced a large uplift in sales, over 7 times that seen in the benchmark state. People seeing the ad were significantly more likely to consider KitchenAid when asked. The brand also saw the highest equity gains in their category with an increase in brand power, coming largely from a big increase in meaningfulness and difference thus achieving the goals they had set themselves to build the brand’s long-term equity.
Positive uplifts were also seen across Facebook and YouTube from a consideration perspective, and their overall commercial performance showed strong YOY growth across targeted categories and regions.
