Promote understanding of the product, raise recognition and expand unit sales. Product sales targeted age groups with keen health awareness. With targets also being newspaper core readers, the strategy chose ads involving “newspaper reporters” who write articles for the paper read daily by the targets. The words and experiences of such reporters proved instrumental in evoking consumers to recall the products, ensuring trust and leading to purchases.

Completed at one-third normal budget. Compared to pre-ad product recognition (6%), follow-up reader survey showed 83% of readers grasping the characteristics and 77.2% with high purchase volition. Stores stocking the products jumped 137% and sales soared 146% over the previous year. Customer hotline set new record for inquiries.

With critical cooperation from the editorial department, 23 reporters regularly writing for that page walked in the shoes and put their impressions into print. With the number of steps traveled also detailed, readers came away with strong impressions of comments being based on “real wear and walking.” Creations of a 4-frame comic artist were enlisted to likewise treat “Walking” as the day’s theme.

Through negotiations with the editorial department space not normally used for advertising was specially secured, with ads strategically placed on nearly all pages of the issue. In a follow-up reader survey, over 70% of respondents called the effort “Innovative and unique as advertising,” underscoring the success in raising reader interest.