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Pure Goodness, The Italian Way.
Strategic Objectives, Canada's top PR Firm, partnered with Loacker, Italy’s best-selling wafer biscuits, to grow awareness for the delicious qualities that differentiate Loacker from its competitors.
Background
A journey to serenity, from Italy to households across Canada.
Loacker is Italy and the world’s number one wafer biscuit. While they’re a household name in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, they’re not as well-known in Canada. Given our reputation for launching and distinguishing products in the Canadian marketplace, Strategic Objectives was the perfect PR partner to place Loacker on the tip of Canadians’ tongue.
Our mission was to share the pure goodness of Loacker wafers with Canadians and position them as the solution to a wide range of entertaining and snacking occasions. Our campaign encouraged people to take a moment and savour serenity — with loved ones, or on their own — and established Loacker as a champion for self care.
The Challenge
Break Through in an Established Category
Snacking is a highly competitive and cluttered category. Loacker tasked us to position wafer biscuits as a pantry essential and versatile ingredient for recipes and everyday snacking indulgence. Our multi-faceted PR program focused on premium positioning: building mass brand awareness for the brand’s Italian values and personality, and driving sales.
The Solution
Create new rituals centred on legacy and values
Our two-year, national, bilingual program (English and French) focused on moments throughout the week for Canadians to experience serenity and relaxation the European way.
Savour Serenity Survey
Our campaign kicked off with an annual national survey to assess Canadians’ need for relaxation and serenity and identify the ways we can make time for them. Results highlighted the importance of self care and that Canadians crave solutions to help them relax and unwind.
Key results include:
- 60% of Canadians have fewer than 1 to 2 hours a day for themselves
- 55% of Canadians feel more stressed than this time last year
- 42% of Canadians love to relax and unwind with a coffee and a biscuit
We leveraged these insights to position Loacker as a champion of self care, and shared ways to bring the European sense of serenity into Canadian lives.
The Loacker Challenge
The time to savour serenity is now — and we wanted Canadians to take action.
To start a national conversation about self care, we introduced the Loacker Challenge — a pledge to take one conscious break every day for a week. The challenge highlighted for media, bloggers, influencers and consumers how infrequently we make time for relaxation, and how important self care is for overall mental health and wellbeing. The Loacker Challenge was supported through branded savour serenity mailers with all the essentials for a moment of relaxation, and a chef partnership to develop inspiring and easy to create recipes.
Influencer Experiences
Is there anything more Italian than dining al fresco? To bring Loacker’s Italian values to life, we hosted two exclusive Savour Serenity events including a super chic picnic, and a gourmet ice cream social where we invited leading food influencers to enjoy a moment of pure indulgence and relax and unwind.
The events generated more than 1.8 million positive social media impressions and more than 200 branded social media features. Sweet!
What we did
- Positioned Loacker as a champion for self care by identifying Canadians’ need for relaxation and the ways that Loacker can help Canadians savour serenity – tying Loacker to relaxation rituals throughout the week and encouraging consumers to associate the brand with moments of deserved indulgence
- Developed and conducted an annual Savour Serenity Survey to assess Canadians’ need for relaxation and the impact that stress has on Canadian lives
- Collaborated with prominent food and lifestyle influencers to create engaging social media content encouraging consumers to savour serenity with Loacker
- Engaged leading food, parenting and entertaining personalities to share easy-to-create recipes featuring Loacker on lifestyle TV broadcasts from coast to coast
- Developed inspiring recipes to help Canadians enjoy the pure goodness of Loacker and entertain stress-free
- Created exciting consumer contesting opportunities, where consumers had the chance to win the same Savour Serenity unboxing experience as their favourite influencers, while encouraging engagement with Loacker’s social media channels and driving traffic to Loacker’s digital properties
- Hosted exclusive experiential events for prominent food influencers to bring the European sensibility of savouring serenity, and the premium quality of Loacker wafer biscuits, to life in a picturesque outdoor setting
- Activated national media, blogger and influencer relations
The Result
Delicious results!
Our award-winning campaign generated outstanding results, surpassing targets and exceeding all measurable objectives. Media coverage was 100% positive. Loacker’s value and volume of sales increased, proving the power of PR!
IABC/Toronto
Ovation Award of Excellence, Media Relations, 2018
30%+
National Sales Increase
- 50+ Million impressions
- 400+ social media posts
- 500+ product samples distributed
- Changed consumer perceptions of Loacker, successfully tying to the brand to key attributes including: “Does not use GMOs, does not use colorings, stands for exceptional high quality, is a brand that makes me happy, is a perfect snack”
- 150+ pieces of media coverage
- 13% Increase in brand awareness among 30-49-year olds
- 6% increase in brand awareness among priority female demographic
- Welcomed leading food influencers to exclusive savour serenity events, encouraging the creation and sharing of hundreds of pieces of branded social media content