Agency: EssenceMediacom Scotland
Category: Best content partnership
(Small budget)
Challenge
Quality Meat Scotland’s (QMS) mission is to develop Scotland’s red meat sector by driving demand for its trusted and authentic Scotch brands, which are underpinned by quality assurance. However, QMS was up against declining levels of red meat consumption due to rising food costs, changes in eating habits and environmental concerns around meat production and distribution. Through its marketing and advertising, QMS needed to get people to reappraise Scotch brands and get them eating Scottish meat again.
Approach
QMS’s research revealed that childhood memories of ‘meat & two veg’ are no longer the stuff of warm nostalgia – a third of respondents talked of ‘bland tasting’ meals with overcooked meat! So QMS had to embrace new flavours and modern cuisine: ‘Meat & 2.0’.
To engage its Meat & 2.0 audience, QMS needed to deliver inspiring content featuring new and healthy ways to serve Scotch meat. News brands were shown to be a trusted source of information, with The Times and The Sunday Times indexing highly for its audience and The Sun delivering significant reach. So, QMS partnered with News Scotland.
With a new content-led approach – in contrast to previous broadcast-led advertising – QMS kicked off the campaign with a four-page wrap of The Times ‘Alba’ supplement for its Scottish edition. This was followed by a full-page advertorial in the Sunday Times; a wrap of The Times’s T2 section, and other key activity including premium native articles on The Sun and The Times websites and digital display across The Times and The Sun.
Results
The partnership reached 1.36 million Scottish consumers and helped establish positive conversations around red meat. The premium native article on The Times’ website delivered an average dwell time of two minutes – 41% longer than benchmark. On The Sun’s website, QMS had impressive results, with 2,519 readers viewing the content for five minutes and 30 seconds – a whopping 228% longer than the benchmark. Importantly, brand awareness for Scotch jumped from 32% to 62% – almost double than before the campaign. Brand consideration more than tripled, brand preference more than doubled, and action intent went from 9% to 35%.
Judges view
This entry demonstrated great use of category and customer insight, as well as campaign effectiveness not just in its media metrics but also business impact.
Helen Rose, managing partner, the7stars
