#MarketingExcellenceAwards MY 2020 highlight: How WONDA Coffee brewed interest with 'hunger marketing'

Etika’s WONDA Coffee brand has been passionately putting effort in coffee innovation with new variants and refined retail format, since the brand’s inception in end 2013. With the positive growth of WONDA Coffee ready-to-drink range, the market has given WONDA Coffee confidence to grow the brand even further and to expand footprint in the pre-mix powdered coffee segment, which is the largest source of business (it takes up approximately half of the total coffee market).

Collaborating with Noir by Entropia, WONDA looked to gain a slice of the pre-mix segment pie in the industry despite the high level of competition by well-established brands. Adapting a three-pronged, multi-sensory approach, WONDA’s “WONDA 3in1: The HOT New Arrival” campaign stole the limelight at A+M’s Marketing Excellence Awards 2020 and bagged a gold award in the category of “Excellence in Integrated Marketing”.

Read more about the campaign here.

Challenge

The new Wonda 3-in-1 Premium Coffee range is its first foray into the pre-mixed segment and marks a significant milestone for the brand. With the introduction, consumers can now enjoy a cup of “just brewed” Wonda Coffee anytime, anywhere.

However, being the new kid on the block, WONDA had the challenge of going up against well-established brands in the pre-mixed segment. Its biggest competitor, Nescafé, has been the dominant player in the entire coffee category, and has made coffee synonymous with its brand.

According to WONDA, research has found that majority of consumers picked their coffee out of pure habit, rather than making a conscious choice. Thus, the team had to shake consumers out of their sleep-walking attitude and disrupt their minds to convert competitor's loyalists to become a WONDA coffee 3-in-1 drinkers.  

WONDA Coffee took inspiration from "Hunger Marketing", and elevated the sense of scarcity to fuel consumers’ desire towards its newly-launched WONDA 3-in-1 Premium Coffee.

Strategy

To win the hearts of consumers, the team at WONDA Coffee sought to understand the underlying emotion needs of coffee lovers. Tapping into the expertise of its agency Entropia, the brand realised that its category target audience are value-seekers who look for a complete coffee experience. Additionally, the team found that online shopping is one of its target audiences’ favourite activity at work.

The team crafted a three-pronged strategy for the campaign:

- Strike one: Invoke product desire through concept of scarcity

The brand planned to release a pre-determined limited quantity of products initially, to drive sense of urgency among consumers, and play up the “Don’t miss it” mindset, as well as creating the impression of “fast selling” and “sold out” phenomena.

- Strike two: Intrigue and elevate experience in 3-in-1 coffee scene through various media touchpoints

WONDA Coffee wanted to bring sampling to a new creative level with a "hot" barista that is full of sass, wit and aromatic coffee theories. It also rallied radio deejays to be WONDA baristas and hold live outdoor broadcasting in a café concept to foster unique engagement with shoppers.

To further engage with consumers, WONDA Coffee treated Malaysians to a free sample via a “drinkable ad”. This was done by attaching free sachets of WONDA 3-in-1 coffee on the front jacketwrap of The Star’s physical publication.

Meanwhile in retail outlets, the team placed a disruptive in-store display that aimed to create a truly sensorial experience for consumers.

- Strike three: Innovate point of purchase

With TV home shopping on the rise, the team at WONDA wanted to tap into the platform to further push sales of its WONDA 3-in-1 coffee. To do so, it collaborated with well-known Malaysia TV home shopping platform, Astro GO Shop.

Aside from that, its partnership with Shopee also helped infiltrate its competitor’s online share of voice on eCommerce platforms.

Execution

Strike one:

WONDA’s target audience spends a considerable time e-shopping. Using this insight to its advantage, the team decided to partner with eCommerce platform, Shopee, as the only exclusive online retail partner for consumers to obtain the products. Furthermore, only a very limited number of stocks were made available for a limited-time of three days prior to the official product launch.

Strike two:

Sampling is the key to drive trial and conversion for a new product. Thus WONDA unveiled its virtual intelligent brew master which brewed cups of hot WONDA 3-in-1 coffee to consumers in high traffic areas such as Nu Sentral and Nexus, Bangsar South. These virtual brew masters were located at intersection of public transit and offices, which was perfect to target working adults who enjoy coffee in the morning or during breaks. Serving free “taste like just brewed” cups of WONDA 3-in-1 Premium Coffee through an interactive coffee dispenser, consumers were treated to a whole new level of café experience.

For the first time-ever, WONDA held a 10-hour live broadcasting roadshow hosted by top Astro DJ-turned-barista. This was the longest outdoor broadcast show that was held in Malaysia.

On international coffee day, WONDA treated Malaysians to have a "Coffee on Us" via "drinkable ads". This was done by attaching free sachets to the front jacket wrap of The Star. The team leveraged on The Star’s high readership and invited readers to try the WONDA 3-in-1 sachet.

Additionally, WONDA decided to create its own breakthrough ad format in Tesco retail outlets to achieve a shelf that stands out in the cluttered grocery environment. The brand took on a radical approach by literally blocking its own shelf with an automated wooden panel which reads “Do not press, unless you are a true coffee lover”.  The button, when pressed, reveals the WONDA 3-in-1, inside. The opening of the lid will activate the light and a coffee scent is also dispersed, to create a truly “sensory” experience for the consumer.

Using Tesco’s shoppers’ data, the also team narrowed down the right shoppers and surprised the selected cluster with high probability of purchase of the WONDA 3-in-1 coffee.

Strike three:

As home consumption is the second biggest consumption channel for 3-in-1 category, WONDA made its 3-in-1 products available through home shopping platform, Astro GO Shop.

The team also launched WONDA’s official store on Shopee Malaysia in conjunction with the unveiling of its 3-in-1 premium hot coffee range in Malaysia. The collaboration with Shopee was aimed to infiltrate WONDA’s competitors’ share of voice on eCommerce platforms.

Furthermore, WONDA took on-air radio DJs in-store to launch a sales battle of who can sell more WONDA 3-in-1 among themselves.

Results

Throughout the campaign launch, WONDA achieved splendid media value of approximately RM 787k of organic media coverage within two months post-campaign launch.

Its Interactive BrewMaster also managed to give samples to 400 unique consumers per location, per day.

During the Astro 10-hour live broadcasting cafe roadshow, WONDA’s Instagram account saw a 4% engagement rate for each Instagram post, which is well above the average 1.69% F&B engagement rate.

The campaign also resulted in an increase of brand awareness. More than half (63%) of Astro listeners mentioned that they are aware of WONDA 3-in-1 Coffee within two months of the launch, which is the highest awareness level WONDA has achieved for a new product campaign since its launch in 2014.