SAFEGUARD ANTIBACTERIAL SOAP AND NEWS SEEMED INCOMPATIBLE BUT WE FOUND WAYS TO CLEAN UP THE RULES

We took Safeguard into forbidden territory by creating a news show, the most difficult and restricted environment for Branded Entertainment.

We had to overcome not just advertising regulations but also the reluctance of TV networks to allow brands in these programmes. Our broadcast partner had a blanket policy of not allowing news anchors to endorse products, for example.

In addition, the Philippines Ad Standards Council rules require approval for all branded TV. This meant allowing seven days for clearance, making it impossible to deliver the real-time news that was the essential benefit of our communication.

We persuaded our broadcast partner to treat our show as an editorial programme to overcome this restriction.

The final hurdles were government regulations governing employees. To ensure credibility for our claims on the benefits of anti-bacterial soap, we needed experts to give our target audience of Mums clear actionable advice.

Since many of these experts were government employees and couldn’t endorse brand activity, we had to create clear editorial guidelines that allowed them to provide commentary without seeming to endorse the brand.

ON TV, RADIO AND DIGITAL CHANNELS, YOU COULDN’T MISS OUR CONTENT

We pulled in our target audience of Mums by leveraging both their appointment to view TV news habits as well as their addiction to digital updates.

Our broadcasts took place at fixed times during the day on free TV, niche and cable TV as well as radio. These shows were promoted via regular on-air trails.

We also integrated our content with our broadcast partner’s website and mobile news app, a must-have for our target.

Finally we pushed new stories out via Twitter taking advantage of our partners’ 2.6 million followers.

BREAKING NEWS: WE TURNED A DECLINING BRAND INTO A REAL SUCCESS STORY

Sales grew by nearly US$2 million during the campaign, helping us sell an extra 14 million bars of Safeguard in just 6 months.

Since the launch of Pamilya On Guard, Safeguard White shares are the highest they have been in 3 years.

Unaided Brand Awareness has increased by 232% amongst the Safeguard target market.

Since the start of the program Safeguard has successfully grown the home hygiene category by 2% whilst beauty sales have declined by 5%.

Ultimately Safeguard was able to not only attract new users but also convert beauty soap consumers.

Pamilya On Guard has become an established news program and now attracts higher ratings than ABS-CBN’s own news breaks.

Pamilya On Guard is so credible that even the Department of Health has become a partner in the programme.

Pamilya On Guard is so effective that other P&G brands are now using the same format to build product relevance.

Pamilya On Guard continues to educate Filipino Mums about the importance of family hygiene protection.