Madison Communications handles Hong Kong launch of Australian infant formula Oz Kids

The brand is starting from scratch in the market, so building trust through building community is a key emphasis of the campaign.

The agency rides on the brand’s main proposition, which is that it is 100 per cent ‘Made in Australia', from milk source to manufacturing to R&D and packaging.

Madison is launching an integrated brand-building exercise which covers brand logo, print ads, Facbook components, an e-commerce drive, a press conference, and online forums like babykingdom.com and Eugene Club to reach out to the target audience.

The agency has also hired popular TVB actor Kwok Chun-on, who has a 5-year-old son and a daughter who was born last year, as Oz Kids' local brand ambassador.

Most milk-powder ads in Hong Kong focus on the nutritional value of the milk powder to babies’ IQ, including Wyeth PE Gold milk powder, Abbott’s prenatal (milk powder for mothers-to-be) and Abbot's infant formula Eye Q.

To stand out, Madison focused on insights from focus group studies, which showed that fathers are an important part of children’s development.

Samuel Mak, the agency's managing director, told Campaign Asia-Pacific, “Australia is famous for its outdoorsy lifestyle, with sunshine, beach and nature, hence our marketing platform is more family-oriented, focusing on ‘grow-through-play’ with their parents and daddies." 

Parents won't switch brands overnight, Mak acknowledged. "However, they are constantly evaluating and have a very high rate of sharing what they know and how they feel about a brand," he said. "We want them to say and share great things on Oz Kids, and this is what we will focus on."

According to Admango, sixty per cent of advertising expenditure in the beverage industry came from formula milk brands, adspend for Abbott Laboratories' milk powder industry only in 2011 was US$26 million (HK$205 million). Research has also found that many mainlanders travelled to Hong Kong to buy locally-made milk powder or other international products following the spate of food safety scandals in China.