Over 100 new ice cream products are launched every year in China, fighting for space in a single square meter of freezer space. Enter Nestlé, the #4 player at 2% share, with a fun banana-themed new product at twice the price of competition. Up against three industry giants who control 46% of sales and each wield budgets 20-30 times larger than Nestlé, this campaign achieved 150% of its full year sales forecast in just three months! And the sales forecast was highly ambitious – requiring BenNaNa to become Nestlé’s best-selling ice cream in its first year.

Our social-centric strategy delivered “buzz beyond budget” and success came in bunches! BenNaNa was named the “the ice cream star of 2012” in marketing media. Within 3 months it became Nestlé’s #1 ice cream product and achieved 150% of the 2012 full year forecast. The level of brand buzz saw BenNaNa reach 42% brand awareness after just 5 months. It featured 7 times in Weibo’s top 10 searches in China – a feat normally only achieved by celebrities – and delivered 5.3 times the average category buzz level. Stores ran out of BenNaNa so often that Nestlé had to restrict distribution to major cities in the peak of summer and we added tips on where to find it on social media.

Our business objective was straightforward – we needed to grow BenNaNa, an unknown product, from launch to become a best-selling ice cream for Nestlé in 2012.

Our communication goal was less clear cut. Our target consumers were “kidults” in China; aged 18-31, they love food, are always afraid of missing out on new styles, and use Sina Weibo obsessively to stay up to date. To effectively reach them, we knew we had to cut through with a disruptive strategy that could punch above its spending level and make BenNaNa the must-have ice cream treat of 2012 in China.

BenNaNa ‘ripened’ quickly to beat its full year sales forecasts by 150% in the first three months and immediately become Nestlé’s leading ice cream in China (source: company sales data).

Nestlé recruited more than four million active online brand ambassadors to spread the word. This drove 42% brand awareness after just five months (source: Nestlé BHT Study, Sep 2012). Awareness converted into immediate trial and drove our first three month sales success.

Public relations tactics were highly successful in driving online search and “buzz well beyond budget”:

• 4.6+ million Weibo tweets about BenNaNa

• 2.1+ million Baidu searches

• #1 Weibo trending topic in just 2 weeks

• 7 times ranked in Weibo top 10 searches (celebrity gossip or crisis are usually the only topics that can achieve that level of fame)

• 5.3 times the average ice cream category buzz (source: CIC iWOM data panel, March–May 2012)

Our execution of this social media campaign unpeeled in phases. From the launch of the Sina Weibo account, we had continuous new and engaging material:

• Sina Weibo: We created an official Weibo account to reflect the fun aspects of BeNaNa and set the tone for the campaign with original copy, entertaining pictures, and stories of BenNaNa’s unique peel-ability.

• Hashtags: Hashtags created by the agency based on Chinese tongue twisters, folk adages, or other hot topics attracted followers and plenty of retweets.

• Photos: By offering a banana-shaped pillow, Weibo exploded with pictures of ‘kidults’ peeling, eating, and playing with BenNaNas. This user-generated content made each tweeter a credible brand ambassador.

• Videos: Three viral videos of BenNaNa pranks were created to fuel fans contributing their own videos.

• Competition: We asked BenNaNa fans to design their own Nestlé BenNaNa for the chance to win an iPad and a mini fridge.

For such a sweet treat, ice cream is a bitterly tough category in China fought out every summer between two powerful Chinese brands, Yili and Mengniu, and Unilever’s Walls. Combined, they hold 46% share of impulse ice cream. Nestlé is the David to their Goliath as the #4 player with 2% retail value share (source: Euromonitor Ice Cream Category Briefing, Nov. 2012).

Enter “BenNaNa”, a fun, unusual ice cream eaten just like a real banana. The combination of fruit jelly and ice cream tasted good and the idea had huge novelty value, but BenNaNa was twice the price of the average competitor in a price sensitive category.

Client and agency research proved that the peelable, edible skin was the most exciting part of BenNaNa so this was our communication focus and key to driving immediate trial. Our strategy was rooted in inviting people to “discover the magical fun of the world’s first peel-able ice cream” and let their creative ideas ripen on social media.

To quickly make BenNaNa the “in” ice cream of summer 2012 and compete against the Goliaths of the ice cream world in spending terms, we needed a highly efficient paid, owned, earned (POE) spending model. A combination of public relations with social and digital media was employed based on the target age group and their media habits. We fuelled initial consumer interest with a campaign Weibo profile to draw kidults. Then we dialed up our earned media content machine through public relations outreach.