Yakult

To bridge the gap between Yakult’s high awareness and much lower consideration in the face of Actimel: the bigger spending, always promoting, market leader which was half the price.

Though health and wellbeing is an increasingly important consideration for us all, confusing (over)claims that are unsubstantiated at best, and fluffy mumbo-jumbo at worst, leave people unsure of the right thing to do. By combining 90 years of health science expertise with Japanese origins that imbue the brand with softer wellbeing associations, Yakult is the antidote to all this by providing much needed wellbeing reassurance.

Built on the ‘science of wellbeing’ platform, all our activity is designed to position Yakult as the brand to trust in a confusing category. Central to this was a fame-building integrated campaign, that playfully poked fun at Western misconceptions about Eastern wellbeing traditions, positioning Yakult as the little bottle of science (not magic).

The wellbeing theme informs all of Yakult’s social activity which is made up of tips, hints and micro influencer content. We even applied this to an experiential AR mirror in Waterloo station, as well as tube card panels.

The pan-European campaign was activated in multiple markets where we established an ownable positioning that defined a clear role for the brand. This translated to 15% growth in a market that is down 5%, whilst allowing Yakult to retain it’s significant price premium. We achieved 70% above norm in creative distinctiveness in IPSOS brand tracking and social post engagement went up 130%.