#MarketingExcellenceAwards highlight: Hitachi's expedited digital transformation plan reaps benefits

The pandemic made Hitachi Home Electronics Asia realise the need to fast-track its year-long digital transformation plans which were originally meant to be rolled out in phases throughout 2020. Working with its digital agency REBL, Hitachi's marketing team sought to enhance its underperforming eCommerce store and digital ecosystem as much as possible by the time phase one of circuit breaker started in Singapore. This was in hopes that online sales would be able to help mitigate offline sales losses as a result of retail stores being forced to shut. Its digital transformation journey landed REBL the gold award for Excellence in Media Strategy at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's recent Marketing Excellence Awards 2020.

Challenge

Despite being a giant in the consumer appliances scene, Hitachi has not been quick to embrace social media and eCommerce in Singapore. As of 2019, the company's consumer business in the country did not have any social media presence. While it launched an eCommerce site last year, traffic and sales were negligible. Hence, Hitachi agreed to a year-long straegy for progressively rolling out the touchpoints and capabilities needed to level up its eCommerce presence.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit and with the prospect of zero offline sales in the months ahead, Hitachi's marketing team and REBL decided to accelerate the year-long digital transformation to enable the company to sell better online over the next few months.

Strategy

By the time circuit breaker arrived, Hitachi had already launched a new Instagram business profile. Ads were also ready to run on YouTube and Google Shopping, channels which Hitachi previously never ran ads on and were not set up more than a month ago. According to REBL, these ads were in addition to those that were already running on Google Search, Google Display, and Facebook Audience Network.

At the same time, a new email marketing system was also set up for Hitachi’s online store and newsletters. These deliverables, which were scheduled to launch over the period of one year, were done in the matter of weeks. The rationale to getting these up and running was to enable Hitachi to communicate how its home appliances could help Singaporeans tackle the new needs and challenges they would face during the circuit breaker, before giving them a good reason and constantly reminding them to make a purchase online.

Its refrigerators, for example, would help Singaporean families struggling to find more food storage space and require better technology for keeping their food fresher for a longer period of time. Meanwhile, Hitachi's air purifiers and vacuum cleaners could come in handy for better air quality and circulation as well as cleaning homes.

Execution

As Singaporeans got used to staying at home, Hitachi launched its "One for everyone" campaign, its first-ever digital one focused on boosting sales towards refrigerators. The campaign introduced Hitachi's full range of 83 refrigerators categorised according to different lifestyles and household needs of Singaporeans. As part of the campaign, consumers were segmented into profiles and targeted with ads customised for each profile across Google, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to drive purchase on Hitachi's online store. At the same time, Hitachi's newsletters were also used to retain these new users landing on the eCommerce site and drive return visits to conversions.

Results

During the nine-week phase one of circuit breaker, Hitachi's accelerated digital transformation resulted in a 923% year-on-year increase in online sales revenue compared to the same period last year, and more than SG$12 return on ad spend compared to SG$9 in the preceding period. It also witnessed 16 times more refrigerators sold than in the same period in the previous year.