Share the LUve
Turning a simple biscuit into a token of affection

1. Market situation

Ask any Belgian to name a few of their favorite biscuits and you will surely hear one of the LU sub brands being name-dropped. Scoring a 6.5/10 on brand awareness with the market benchmark set at 4.8¹, LU was already a well established household name in the Belgian sweet biscuits market. Sounds like a pretty comfortable situation, right?

An international study held by Havas Global² shows that brand awareness and functional benefits alone are no longer cutting it in the long term. Prior to the campaign, Mondelez Insights noticed a structural decline in sales despite the fact that LU is benefiting from huge brand awareness. In other words, the brand was starting to lack a deeper connection with consumers, leading to loss in penetration. Action was needed.

1. Source: Metrixlab, 2019 - 2021
2. Source: Havas Global, Meaningful Brands study, 2017-2019

2. Objectives

In order to turn this around our objectives appeared to be trifold:

1. ACTIVATE THE BELGIANS by creating meaningful connections around LU biscuits, in order to …
   
   
2. INCREASE THE OVERALL BRAND'S MEANINGFULNESS SCORE (ATTITUDE) and reverse the declining deeper connection with the brand of the Belgian consumers, so ultimately we …
   
   
3. INCREASE IN AVERAGE DAILY SALES (BEHAVIORAL) and reverse the declining penetration numbers prior to the campaign.

3. Strategy

WHAT IS LOVE?

Belgians are not known for their open displays of emotions, grand gestures or passionate expressions of love. Don't expect us to go off and serenade our love underneath some bedroom balcony.

Trying to tackle this cultural tendency might seem very ambitious for a simple biscuit manufacturer. But for a brand that wants to win back the hearts of the Belgians, the risk was well worth the try.

WHAT ROLE DO BISCUITS HAVE IN BELGIAN CULTURE?

Besides being a 10 o'clock, 4 o'clock or late night snack, Belgians also put biscuits on the table when they have people over, bring biscuits to the office to treat colleagues, surprise loved ones with their favorite biscuits, … The offering of biscuits in Belgian culture is generally considered to be a token of affection.

• In order to Increase LU's meaningfulness by actively contributing to a more loving (less individualistic) society
• We would need to help the Belgians overcome their emotional reservedness and create more meaningful connections by sharing LU biscuits.

We wanted the Belgians to connect to each other and to #ShareTheLUve.

THE 3-YEAR PLAN :
WORKING OUR WAY UP THE CIRCLES OF TRUST

In order to overcome the Belgian aloofness we expanded the reach of our campaign following the circle of trust.

1.INTIMACY CIRCLE

By placing the most common endearing nicknames on the LU packs we turned the LU biscuits into the perfect gift to express our affection to our most intimate connections.

We raised awareness for this packtivation on national radio, translated our LUving message into a digital campaign and included online video in order to reach our target while having the possibility to display the new packs with the endearing names. Social media and influencer content was also part of the equation in order to create engagement with our audience and consumers.

COVID19 - THE LUve LETTERS
Shortly after kicking-off the campaign, the global pandemic put a hard stop to everything. We quickly adapted to this new reality and created a digital platform that allowed the Belgians to send LU biscuits with a custom endearing name to somebody they were missing because of the lockdown. The response was huge. A total of 150.000 LUve-letters were sent in a heart-beat. On top of that we created an online platform that allowed people to create their own pack with a personalized endearing name.

2. FRIENDSHIP CIRCLE

By replacing the endearing names on the packs with compliments, we encouraged the consumer to reach out to the next circle of trust: the friendship circle. By giving someone a pack of LU, one would automatically be giving that person a compLUment.

In order to give this new action a national scale, and given the emotional power this campaign had, we decided to include a TV tag-on to our national TV campaign and added a more tactical campaign through social media, generating even more engagement and consideration for the LU products.

3. FREQUENT CONNECTIONS

In the last phase of our 3-year strategy, we'd been in lockdown for over a year and half and the impact on society's mental health was really showing. How could we as a brand be meaningful? We discovered that '½ Belgians are confronted with loneliness at a certain point in life.'³

'KOEKOEKSKES' AGAINST LONELINESS
We encouraged the Belgians, who had been in lockdown for almost two years now and were aching social interaction, to reach out to those they care about or haven't heard from in a while and pay them a little visit. It's unlike the Belgians to show up at someone's doorstep empty handed so we suggest bringing a pack of LU. So we created the activation - 'Koekoekskes against loneliness'. A 'Koekoekske' meaning: saying hello (koekoek) to someone with a biscuit (koekske).

• Visit someone lonely with a pack of LU biscuits
• Post your moment on social media
• LU donates 0,50 € to CAW (Centrum voor Algemeen Welzijn)

As we really wanted this campaign to enter the heads and hearts of the Belgian population, we ran a big national TV campaign in order to create awareness around our tension (loneliness) and impact at the beginning of the campaign. As we wanted to remain relevant for our younger audience the message was adapted and conveyed through digital touchpoints in online video and social media in order to create engagement and conversation.

3. Source: Nationaal Geluksonderzoek, UGent, Lieven Annemans, 2019

4. Results

DID WE MAKE THE BELGIANS #SHARETHELUVE?

We spread our LUving message to 6,5 million unique users and sold a total of 7,5 million packs with endearing names or compLUments on them and allowed 150.000 Belgians, stuck in lockdown, to share their LUve through our LUve letters activation. It's safe to conclude that we have successfully proven that the Belgians, despite their cooler nature, have a lot of LUve to share.

DID LU BECOME MORE MEANINGFUL?

Coming from a 63 score on meaningfulness in 2019, the results in the 2021 metrixlab study show an increase of almost 10%. On the MBI index (MEANINGFUL BRANDS INDEX by HAVAS GROUP), LU is awarded a 70,1, positioning LU as 2nd most meaningful FMCG brand and 10th most meaningful brand cross category in Belgium. This on top of the massive response to the LUve letters activation, local press coverage and the overall amount of 7,5 million LUve packs sold, allows us to conclude that our #ShareTheLUve campaign resonated strongly with the Belgian public.

DID WE REVERSE THE DECLINE IN PENETRATION?

The whole reason to boost overall meaningfulness was of course to reverse the declining penetration. But did we succeed? When we take a look at the results after 2 years of campaigning, we can see that not only we've been able to stop this but are even back on the rise⁴ ! Nielsen sell-out shows even a rise in value sales on the LU portfolio of +6,1%⁵.

4. Source: Mondelez Insights
5. Source: Nielsen Sell-out