Case study: How Anchor Food Professionals created hype around its services

Anchor Food Professionals (AFP) is the food service division under Fonterra Brands that creates high quality, fit-for-purpose products and service solutions for food service professionals in more than 50 countries. AFP’s range of products includes a variety of cheeses, creams, cream cheeses, butter and milk products.

Despite it being a household brand, the company still wants to create buzz and raise awareness around the range of services it offers to constantly remain on top of consumers’ minds. As such, AFP partnered with Truth Communications for the PizzArt campaign.

The campaign led Truth Communications to win gold for Excellence in Integrated Marketing (B2B), and bronze for Excellence in B2B Marketing at the Marketing Excellence Awards 2018 Malaysia.

This post was done in conjunction with Truth Communications.

Problem

AFP’s range of services solutions include front-of-house presentations, pricing and promotion, introducing solutions that improve productivity, increase yield, reduce wastage and enhance taste, and delivering exciting new menu options.

While AFP continues its reign as the leading dairy provider in the food services sector, there was still a gap in the awareness and understanding of the full-spectrum of services on offer by AFP. As such there was a need to showcase its true credentials in creating innovative business solutions that help its partners grow.

Objective

AFP approached us to design a publicity campaign that would effectively reach out to restaurant owners and operators as well as customers by delivering an exciting campaign that would instantly and meaningfully connect with the audience to build awareness and affinity for AFP and its products.

On a purely public relations aspect, the challenge was in creating awareness on the launch of these unique pizzas for a limited time at partner pizzerias and cafes, driving consumer trials and creating a buzz big enough to entice more partners to come on board.

Solution

The campaign was a long-term integrated marketing campaign with an emphasis on experiential on-ground events. It was focused on appealing to the business minds and innovative spirit of restaurateurs to entice them to sign up as AFP partners.

Hence, AFP devised the PizzArt campaign, a nationwide B2B-centric experiential focused initiative that was designed to provide a hands-on showcase of the creative uses of AFP’s products and how they can be used to excite consumers with global food trends.

The campaign utilised pizzas, but placed an artisanal spin on them, creating unique pizzas and pizza-inspired dishes that would tempt and tantalise customers all across the country, revolutionising the traditional perception of pizzas, and importantly, providing a visitors and sales boost to participating restaurants.

By bringing these global food trends to Malaysia and equipping local chefs with the skills to further innovate, the campaign positioned AFP as local trendsetters, paving the way for a food revolution in Malaysia.

The campaign relied on on-ground events to provide an up-close and personal experience that would help forge more meaningful and personal relationships between AFP, its partners, the media and consumers. This strategy also helped allow all participants and attendees to taste the bold flavours and irresistible taste of the pizzas.

This was supplemented by engagements with conventional mainstream media, online portals as well as digital influencers and bloggers to effectively reach out to a wide spectrum of stakeholders.

In rolling-out the campaign the following techniques and approaches were utilised:

1. A highly themed on-ground launch event to generate initial buzz.
2. Up-close cooking demonstrations designed to showcase and inspire.
3. A fun pizza trail for trial of the pizzas at the outlets directly.
4. Experiential workshops for the business partners to showcase the value-added services and their benefits.
5. Regional pizza trails and experiential tasting sessions at partner restaurants across the country throughout the campaign to drive consumer trials.

Execution

The campaign officially began with the launch of phase one on 18 May 2017, which was swiftly followed by a nationwide tour and then phase two which ended in May 2018.

The PizzArt campaign was fully aligned with the core values of AFP, delivering fit-for-purpose products coupled with unique recipes and one-of-a-kind hands-on experiences to benefit its business partners and attract customers.

Phase one featured the Georgian creation that is all the rave in New York – Adjaruli Khachapuri or a cheese filled Pizza Boat; the bite-sized yet flavoursome Pizza Bombs; the stunning Pizza Flower meant to be torn apart petal by petal in communal feasting; as well Pizza Muffins; and Pot Pie Pizzas.

Due to its overwhelming success PizzArt one was quickly followed by PizzArt two. In the second phase, connoisseur-worthy pizzas introduced were the Pizza Burger; the Chicago-authentic Deep Dish Pizza; Pizza Rolls; Ulti-meat which is a truly novel pizza with a meat base instead of the usual dough; and the Cheese Pretzza.

For the launch of both PizzArt campaigns, Truth Communications played a pivotal role in creating the buzz both digitally through influencers as well as mainstream media and in driving consumer trials through reviews at each outlet.

Every single partner throughout the country both in the Peninsula and East Malaysia participated in receiving media and influencer reviews, hence, creating a snowball effect in the awareness of the programme.

According to Truth Communications, this was AFP’s most ambitious and extensive PR campaign, which helped build hype for its pizza offerings through reviews and driving interest in the partner outlets in an effort to boost sales for them. All key aspects that would determine the success of the event.

The PizzArt trails included a total of 23 events held in various partner restaurants in Klang Valley, Penang, Melaka, Batu Pahat, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu, Sibu, Miri and Bintulu.

Results

Leveraging on a unique concept, Truth Communications kept pace alongside AFP for the connoisseur-worthy campaign and delivered an effective nationwide experiential campaign that promoted the AFP’s products, services and offerings to its business partners, equipping the business partners with new skills and offerings, while also driving public interest in the partners’ restaurants.

The campaign was extensive, spanning a period of nine months, cutting across 10 locations and consisting of 18 media events.

The results of the campaign were also equally substantial in successfully communicating the core messages of the PizzArt to businesses, namely that AFP offers unique fit-for-purpose products coupled with its wide-array of value-added services that can help their restaurants grow.

In terms of numbers, across the span of the entire campaign Truth Communications was successful in attracting 143 members of media which generated 325 coverage and postings equating to a total of RM2.33 million in PR value.

This also translated to a business positive for AFP with 38 business partners participating across PizzArt one and PizzArt two and an escalating interest from other business partners to be a part of future campaigns led by AFP.