CASE STUDY: How Polident bridged the generation gap in China

Background

Denture cleaning tablets are a new product category in China, and GlaxoSmithKline's Polident an unfamiliar brand. End users, generally the elderly, have deeply engrained habits about their dentures which are difficult to change. Their children are the primary purchasers, who are far more open to change than their parents.

MediaCom Beijing looked into the social phenomenon of 'empty nests', the stage in a family's cycle when the children have grown up and left home to begin their own families. This provides a marketing opportunity to close the emotional distance between elderly parents and their children, positioning Polident as the catalyst.

Execution

MediaCom's strategy focused on the two occasions children are most expected to show their love for their parents: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. To deliver maximum impact, the agency used GPS technology to measure the physical distance between children and their parents, and online videos to amplify the poor efforts of young adults in caring for their aging parents. A Polident-branded microblog was launched to encourage children to post traditional letters and express their feelings for their parents, followed by trial packs sent to their parents' homes. The campaign period was from 28 April to 23 June last year.

Results

The active sharing mechanics of the campaign helped drive reach and engagement, generating 2.8 million unique campaign site views, with a 40 per cent participation rate. On Mother's Day in 2011, for example, there were more than 8.6 million video views with a forwarding rate of 128 per cent. A quarter of all Sina Weibo users were reached by the campaign.

Most importantly, awareness of Polident denture cleaning tablets more than tripled. Calls to the Polident hotline increased by 150 per cent, with an 81 per cent increase in sales. MediaCom China was also named as the winner of the effectiveness award in The Festival of Media Global Awards 2012 in Switzerland.