CASE STUDY: How Bulla Dairy Foods used Oz to sell ice cream in Oz

Background

Working with Melbourne-based The Bridge to develop a campaign late last year for its Bulla Creamy Classics ice cream, Bulla Dairy Foods wanted to emphasise associations relating to comfort, relaxation and coming home.

The campaign was to be a low budget, low weight, short-lived campaign involving two four-week bursts. A familiar theme as over the decades budgets have dwindled, media has fragmented and marketers typically don’t have the same kind of financial resources to reposition existing brands or establish powerful brands. The creative has to work much harder.

Aim

The objectives of the campaign were to:

• Increase sales
• Communicate the desired associations for the brand relating to comfort, relaxation and coming home
• Make an immediate impact due to limited budget and campaign length

Execution

While it can take a long time to establish such associations from scratch, a character exists that’s already famous for representing and enjoying the feeling of coming home: Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, a property of Warner Bros.

Warner Bros Consumer Products Clip Licensing offers access to the studio’s vast library of iconic film, television and animation properties to help communicate brand messages to consumers across a variety of mediums, including television, radio, cinema, print and billboards.

The use of the much-loved The Wizard of Oz characters gave the creative concept an immediate sense of warmth, familiarity and charm, which would have been more difficult to achieve through newly created protagonists.  

By referring to The Wizard of Oz, the campaign was able to revisit the memories the film evokes, the sentiment around being ‘at home’ and the love of ice cream, to give the brand a reinvigorated place in the homes of many Australians, according to the agency  The fact that Bulla Dairy Foods has been owned and operated by the same three families over six generations gave the themes added resonance.

The Bridge worked with Warner Bros and the client to develop a campaign involving Dorothy and a soundtrack based on ‘There’s no place like home’. Approvals were swift thanks to the local Warner Bros. Consumer Products Australia, New Zealand, India office managing the process. The brand and the agency consider the approach faster and more economical, despite the licensing fees, than working to forge new brand associations.

Thirty- and 15-second TVCs ran in Metro Melbourne and Sydney, as well as regional VIC and NSW, during the peak summer season. Budget constraints restricted the brand to one medium.

Results

The campaign resulted in sales increases in VIC/NSW, versus a decline in states where the campaign did not run. Its first week saw increased sales of 20,000 units, the biggest increase ever achieved in a one-week period in non-discounted sales. The TVC received high scores for recall, recognition and memorability in brand tracking. Recall was higher than any previously tracked Bulla ad, and 14 per cent higher than Streets Blue Ribbon, which had double the spend, according to The Bridge.

Ad descriptions were incredibly vivid. For example, one read, “Girl dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard Of Oz gets on a bus....Sees a few things that give her a fright then settles back at home on her chair with some ice cream.”

Finally, brand equity increased. Pre-campaign, 6 per cent of purchasers would recommend the brand; post-campaign this increased to 20 per cent. And this was for a low budget, low weight, short-lived campaign involving two four-week bursts.

CREDITS

Agency: The Bridge Consulting Group
Executive Creative Director: Fiona Leeming
Creative: Fiona Leeming, Tony Hardy, Tamara Yim
Agency Producer: Jenny McCartney
Meagan Bell – Group Account Director
  
Production Company: The Sweet Shop
Director: Melanie Bridge
Producer: Cindy Kavanagh
  
Sound Design: Sound Lounge Engineers - Sam Hopgood and Richard Buxton
Sound Lounge Producer: Lizzie Haussegger
Original soundtrack and lyrics: Richard Buxton and Sam Hopgood

Warner Bros Consumer Products Clip Licensing: Preston Kevin Lewis