• Weetabix were aiming to get consumers to eat Weetabix more frequently.
• A TV-led campaign highlighted the product’s versatility by encouraging consumers to try it with a range of toppings during a Weetabix Week.
• The advertising captured cereal fans’ imaginations and helped drive impressive growth for the brand.

The challenge
Weetabix is a relatively simple product, a biscuit of wholegrain goodness. As such it can form the healthy core of a varied breakfast and the challenge for marketing was to communicate this versatility. The brand wanted consumers to try their Weetabix with a range of different toppings during the course of a Weetabix Week. The campaign aimed to reinvigorate the morning routine and so required visibility and momentum. As well as inspiring consumers it had to create a palpable sense of event.

The TV solution
TV was vital in the media mix, taking 90% of the budget. It offered affordable scale as well as the creative scope to enable the brand to mobilise the nation. The target audience was incredibly broad, in line with Weetabix’s existing consumer base. Within this the core target was housewives with children, as this group offered the greatest volume potential. The TV campaign contained two creative strands. The first was a 30-second ad containing seven topping suggestions for a Weetabix Week. The second was a series of four commercials showing real people giving The Weetabix Week a go. These ads featured a young family, an older couple, some students and a young couple all trying different ways to eat their Weetabix and talking about the benefits. The TV was scheduled in three high intensity bursts (May/June, July/August and September/October), with the core target group seeing the ad up to four times in a week during these events. Alongside the TV was a tactical press campaign around key sporting events such as Wimbledon and the World Cup, with relevant toppings such as strawberries and cream for the tennis and a St George’s cross of yoghurt and strawberries for the football.

Results
Awareness and consideration measures showed impressive uplifts over the campaign period. Most importantly, Weetabix has benefited from sales growth year-on-year and sales have remained high even during the weeks when the brand has not been on TV. The volume of traffic on the Weetabix website – where consumers could get breakfast ideas as well as nutritional information – correlated directly with the TV activity, demonstrating the medium’s ability to get consumers to take action. The campaign has continued into 2007, with further TV activity in January accompanied by a New Year magazine burst illustrating a different Weetabix combination for each day of the month.