Bosch sponsors Sunday Brunch

Key Points

• Bosch needed to drive awareness of their small domestic appliances
• They created a year long partnership that showcased the breadth and quality of Bosch appliances in a highly relevant environment
• As a result, spontaneous awareness grew by 77%

The Challenge

Bosch are a market leading home appliance brand. The brand’s heritage has been built on the quality, reliability and innovation of their major domestic appliances such as washing machines, tumble dryers, ovens and fridges. Within this category, Bosch have high spontaneous awareness of 46% which has contributed to consistently high sales. Previously, Bosch had focussed their communications on maintaining their strength in this sector.

However, in 2015, Bosch had a new business objective. They wanted to raise awareness of their small domestic appliances (SDA) such as food preparation products, kitchen mixers, kettles and toasters. The SDA category is highly competitive with a number of established brands like Kenwood, Morphy Richards, Breville and Russell Hobbs. Over the past three years, Bosch have had only 1.8% share of voice for SDA and as a consequence they had a much lower spontaneous awareness of 15%.

Their communications objectives for 2015 were as follows:

• Primary: increase spontaneous awareness of SDA
• Secondary: increase consideration and purchase intent of SDA

In 2015, Bosch SDA market share was almost half that of the major domestic appliances and so the challenge was significant.

The TV Solution

They tasked their media agency, Mediacom, to find a solution. They wanted something that could not only drive the awareness they needed, but also showcase multiple SDA products. Mediacom recommended a long term, multi-dimensional, always on TV partnership. TV sponsorship was chosen because of its ability to improve spontaneous awareness. A long term sponsorship was needed in order to keep the brand top of mind for as long as possible. Finally, the partnership needed to offer product placement opportunities so that multiple SDA products could be shown and demonstrated.

They found the perfect opportunity in Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. It provided everything they needed, was a good fit with the affluent, middle aged Bosch target audience and was broadcast at a time when viewers would be most inspired to consider their home appliances. TGI figures showed that Sunday Brunch viewers are 33% more likely to influence others about home appliance purchases.  

The product placement opportunity meant they could dramatise the product benefits, showing the Bosch products in action in an authentic way. This would allow them to shift brand consideration and purchase intent as well as awareness.

In addition, as the majority of Bosch SDA transactions are in-store as opposed to online, this partnership would benefit Bosch trade and retail partners alongside consumers. 

The Plan

The partnership ran for the whole of 2015 and covered 52 three hour programmes. Each programme had nine centre breaks, which meant Bosch had 115 seconds of accreditation every week. It also gave them the ability to rotate product messages according to seasonality and they had a very strong frequency of message for each copy – 32 on average.

Bosch’s target audience like to use products recommended by an expert (TGI index 155) and so the product placement gave their audience the reassurance they craved and Bosch the credibility they needed in SDA to influence purchase intent.

Bosch appliances had 85 active uses within the cooking segments. Here’s an example of David Hasselhoff using a Bosch hand mixer in one episode.

They also tweeted recipes from the show and linked the recipes to the product that had helped create them.

The partnership provided the perfect mix of weekly frequency, scale of the right audience and brand fit

Results

• The sponsorship delivered 949 ratings across the year
• Amongst Sunday Brunch viewers, spontaneous awareness increased 53% across the year and consideration increased by 15%
• When comparing Sunday Brunch viewers to non-viewers at the end of the partnership, spontaneous awareness of SDA was 77% higher, consideration was 28% higher and purchase intent was 18% higher
• As a result of the partnership, attitudes towards the brand improved, reaffirming Bosch’s high quality but also helping the brand seem more relevant
• SDA sales were up 16% in value year on year
• The sponsorship formed part of an integrated brand strategy, which led to strong growth within the food preparation product category
• Campaign was a finalist in TV Planning Awards Best Use of Sponsorship or Content category

Databank

Sector: Household goods

Brand: Bosch

Campaign objectives: To raise awareness and consideration for their small domestic appliances range 

Target Audience: ABC1 adults

Budget: approx. £1.5m

Campaign Dates: The partnership ran from 4^th January to 27^th December 2015. The programme ran from 0930 to 1230 every Sunday on Channel 4.

TV Usage: Sponsorship idents + product placement

Creative Agency: Bonfire

Media Agency:  Mediacom