Zespri India's new campaign tells us how delicious kiwifruits are

Conceptualised by Zero:Zero Creative Solutions, the multi-media campaign aims to familiarise consumers with the taste of the kiwifruit with a 'Zurprise'

Roshni Nair | Mumbai | July 15, 2016

Click on the image to watch the TVC.

It is not every day that you see a fruit being advertised in India. This is mainly because fruits, like milk and flour earlier, are considered as a commodity and have never been treated as a brand. But Zespri has taken a step towards bringing fruits to the limelight with their new multi-media campaign for kiwifruits.

The campaign, conceptualised by Zero:Zero Creative Solutions, aims to familiarise consumers with the taste of the fruit and has evolved after deep consumer research and understanding. The TVC stars child actor Harshaali Malhotra of Bajrangi Bhaijaan fame guiding soldiers on how to eat the fruit and preparing everyone for the 'Zurprise' they are in for once they taste it.

Speaking about the leap in marketing strategy and the challenges the brand faced, Ritesh Bhimani, Markets Manager, Zespri India said, “For us, India is a key growth market where we are aiming to expand category growth first, followed by market preference for the brand. Our biggest challenge at hand was to garner recognition and eventually create preference for kiwifruits in India versus other fruits that currently clutter the market. Our campaign hence concentrates its communication around the 'taste aspect' of a fruit, something we believe we will achieve with Harshaali leading the campaign and educating customers through an innovative way to eat the fruit. In fact, showcasing the 'Be Zurprised' element is key to our marketing leap -- you will see soldiers bursting into dance simply by cutting, scooping and eating the fruit -- something never seen before on Indian television.”

Considering that fruit is a category that is not advertised in India and even under the commoditised fruit category kiwi is a relatively new fruit to the Indian market, creating a communication for the category is a challenge. Shedding light on the challenges that they had to face to come up with the campaign, Kumar Subramaniam, Partner, Zero: Zero said, “There was a fair bit of research that had to go into it. First of all fruit is a commoditised category and secondly even under the commoditised fruit category it is a new fruit which is just about a couple years old. Even though it is a fast-growing category, it is a very new category. We really started off by asking people questions about how do they consume fruit at a broader level in their families, what are the drivers of fruit? So there was a lot of research that went into it. Internationally, there are a lot of campaigns that people might have seen but is not something that has happened often in India before. So how to communicate something about fruits, given that fruits are never really advertised about, was a great challenge for us.”

“The other challenge really was to figure out what is the importance of advertising kiwifruits as a category and Zespri as a brand. These were some of the key challenges that we had to navigate because both were important. On one level we had to talk about kiwifruits because they are new and on other hand also talk about Zespri because even though it is the largest by far brand of kiwifruits, it is still a new brand nonetheless,” he added.

On the idea behind using a child actor for the campaign, Subramaniam said, “By using a well-known child actor what you are able to do is get a significant cut-through. Also, this is a food product and children are big consumers either directly or they play a big role in parents buying any food product, including fruits.”

Commenting on the scope of the category Bhimani said, “For a market that has seen 50% YOY growth consistently for the last couple of years, Zespri International is now adding impetus to its marketing efforts in India in order to educate consumers about the wonders of kiwifruits. Increasing focus on health and nutrition has already made Zespri a huge success story in India with 2015 being our most profitable year to date. We have sold over 1 million trays marked by major growth in tier-II & tier-III cities. Varied innovative channels of distribution and e-commerce have contributed towards a fruitful sales pattern. 2016 is also the year for category growth in India, we are sure we will touch the 1.5 million tray mark this season.”

Experts speak

Harish Bijoor

Harish Bijoor, CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc., feels there is plenty of scope in the category. “The advertising in the category will start with rare fruits and will go to the common fruits. This advertising is possible from kiwi to karela (bittergourd). It is a good start and the TVC is also visually rich,” he said.

Prateek Srivastava, Founder, Chapter Five Brand Solutions, believes that over the last 15 years in India, there has been a gradual shift from commodity to brands. “Ten years back you would never have seen an ad for an atta (flour) but now there are so many. Similarly, 10-15 years ago there was no ad for milk but now you have all these brands fighting with each other in the milk market. It is a process that started many years ago and now I think it is the turn of items like fruits and vegetables to get branded. It also makes sense to start to with an exotic fruit. There are two things at play here. One is that it should not be available next door to people and secondly people shouldn't have enough experience in buying the product. When you see a kiwifruit you don't know how to judge its quality unlike a mango or a grape where you can look at the fruit and know what the quality is like. But with a fruit like kiwi there is greater dependence on somebody else to tell you the quality and that is where a brand comes in.”

The TVC:

https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/bmi/media/post_attachments/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/kiwifruits-TVC.jpg

The Print Ad:

Credits

Client: Zespri India

Agency: Zero: Zero Creative Solutions

Creative Partner, Zero: Zero: Kaushik Roy

Design Partner, Zero: Zero:  Satish Ambewadikar

Business Partner, Zero: Zero:  Kumar Subramaniam

Director: Aman Sachdeva
Producer: Mahen Solanki

Cinematographer: Srijit Basu

Music Director: Dipanjan Guha

Production House: Wishful Films

Market Development Manager, Zespri India: Ritesh Bhimani

Market Development Associate, Zespri India: Manasi Chitlangia

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