Emvies 2012: Kissan's 100 per cent tomato festival

At the case study presentations for Emvies 2012, Mindshare put forward its initiative for Kissan tomato ketchup, wherein people were actually engaged in the growing of the core ingredient of the product - tomatoes - and the ketchup making process to drive home the point that Kissan tomato ketchups are made of 100 per cent real tomatoes.

How better to deliver a brand message than make the consumer live the promise? Kissan, with 'Kissanpur - a farm in the middle of our city', gave its consumers a hands-on experience of growing tomatoes, all to drive home the message that Kissan's tomato ketchups are made of 100 per cent real tomatoes.

Mindshare, the media agency behind the Kissanpur campaign, presented the campaign details at the Emvies 2012 case study presentation round. The campaign has been shortlisted under various sub-categories such as Best Media Strategy-Consumer Products, Best Media Innovation-Print, Best Media Innovation-Events, and Best Integrated Campaign for Emvies 2012, organised by The Advertising Club Bombay. The awards will be given away on September 3 in Mumbai.

Kissan, a 75-year old brand that has enjoyed reasonable success in the category, faced multiple challenges. Firstly, there was the fact that the brand was losing relevance among consumers in the category. With more brands entering the space, any red bottle on shelves was considered to be ketchup, irrespective of quality difference.

Also, it was observed that many consumers were not aware that most brands in the category used other vegetables to make the ketchup rather than real tomatoes. So, there was the added task of making the consumers believe that Kissan ketchups were made from "100 per cent real tomatoes". This tall claim of '100 per cent'- many brands made it and hence the challenge was to convincingly pass a differentiated message to the consumer.

While the agency could have created a big media noise about the desired message, it would only have been a part of media clutter and hence was required a non-conventional route to gain consumer confidence. The best way found was to make the consumer experience the brand promise of 100 per cent real.

The Mindshare representative at the presentation revealed how consumers were asked what 'real' means to them. In response, consumers described 'real' as something that is away from what is virtual, something that genuinely exists, is organic and unadulterated, and is a healthy experience.

Marrying the brand promise and consumer insights, the idea emerged that consumers must be offered an experience of growing tomatoes and ketchup making process for real and made to see how Kissan ketchups are indeed made from 100 per cent real tomatoes.

Hence was born the idea of Kissanpur, a journey through real natural experiences where what you grow is what you eat!

Primarily targeting children so as to get them to experience nature in addition to the brand message, the campaign began in February and ran till May in Mumbai and New Delhi.

Kissanpur was driven through the print and digital media and supported by BTL activities. Tomato seeds were distributed along with newspapers and through school contact programmes, encouraging people to grow tomatoes.

The initiative culminated by bringing to Mumbai the real farm experience called Kissanpur, wherein people came back with their tomato plants. The collected tomatoes were then used to make "100 per cent real and pure Kissan Tomato Ketchup" specially packed in customised bottles with the participants' pictures on the label.

On the digital front, the campaign was initially pushed heavily on Twitter and on the Kissan brand page on Facebook. A microsite was created where participants could post pictures and blog regularly on the progress of their plants. Seeds could also be ordered through the microsite.

School children were also taken to farms to experience horticulture. Workshops were conducted on vegetable farming to raise awareness among them. At the final event, there were activities and workshops such as pottery making, compost making, puppet shows and nature workshops to further boost engagement.

The activity helped to raise Kissan's market share by 1.8 per cent and the average consumption went up by 70 per cent. With around 2.5 million seeds distributed, close to 8.5 million consumers were reached and the brand gained free PR worth Rs 3.8 million, according to Mindshare.