Paddle Pop is the lead product in the ice-cream segment, but was facing a strong threat from other complimentary products - snack foods targeting children. Our challenge was to create maximum impact during launch thereby raising awareness of the new product variant and gain lost ground to the complimentary products.

Our goal was to achieve 80% awareness amongst primary school children, over four weeks.We also needed to build excitement amongst the kids to drive trial of the new Paddle Pop Jungle Fruit. The media solution came in two parts.

Firstly, two weeks prior to launch, the objective was to build excitement and involvement around the product. The mobile sales-force of 400 ‘ice-cream menEwere used to hand out an interactive incentive card to school children. Once the children filled in the answers, they could redeem a free Jungle Fruit flavour icecream. These cards were handed out in residential areas, outside schools and at major playgrounds.The second part of the solution was to announce the product launch and create a high awareness for the new flavour. To do this we set out on an exploration of targeting kids effectively.We learned through our exploration that:Kids love cartoons on TV, cartoon programs are the best vehicles to reach them;Children do not differentiate between cartoon programs and commercials;When children tune in to the weekend cartoons they are totally captivated by the entire TV line up Eads and all.To capitalize on the open window created when kids sit down to watch the weekend cartoons, we created a Paddle Pop Jungle Fruit association with the entire cartoon belt on Saturday’s and Sunday’s.Where competitors in the past have only ever sponsored individual cartoon programs, we negotiated innovative commercial timeslots to totally integrate the Paddle Pop into the cartoon belt and created a holistic expanded kids viewing time on Saturday’s and Sunday’s. We did this by:Running a 10 second opener to the entire belt of cartoons;Securing 5 second interlink commercial placements in between one program and the next, which featured tailor-made Paddle Pop messages;Including normal thematic Jungle Fruit commercials placed throughout the belt of cartoons;Running 10 a second closer for the entire belt of cartoons.This integrated association generated a strong frequency level, which is imperative when marketing to children and capitalised on the discovery that kids are totally captivated by cartoons and do not differentiate between the cartoon and the ads.We broke through the clutter by creating a sense of ownership for the entire cartoon belt. For the launch of Paddle Pop Jungle Fruit, Universal McCann was requested to devise a strategy that would differentiate and lift awareness of the product from other competitors in a highly cluttered market targeting children.

An analysis of the market revealed that TV is the key vehicle for kids to drive awareness, as they treat TVC’s as part of the program, watching even through the commercial. On weekends they will sit through an entire belt of cartoons. We capitalised on this viewing behaviour discovery by negotiating innovative commercial time before, after and during cartoon programs. This was the key to the success of the campaign. This submission is special because we discovered a key insight into the way children watch TV and capitalised on this behaviour to deliver unprecedented awareness levelsEwithin two weeks of the campaign launch, Jungle Fruit awareness hit almost 80% of all primary school children. Our goal was to achieve this awareness level over four weeks. Sales figures follow the same line as the awareness tracking.

Paddle Pop Jungle Fruit is THE snack to have for Kids.(NB: Sales figures remain confidential)

For the launch of Paddle Pop Jungle Fruit, Universal McCann was requested to devise a strategy that would differentiate and lift awareness of the product from other competitors in a highly cluttered market targeting children.

An analysis of the market revealed that TV is the key vehicle for kids to drive awareness, as they treat TVC’s as part of the program, watching even through the commercial. On weekends they will sit through an entire belt of cartoons. We capitalised on this viewing behaviour discovery by negotiating innovative commercial time before, after and during cartoon programs. This was the key to the success of the campaign.