Danone – Activia case study

Challenge
As a company that spends the majority of its marketing budget for brands such as Activia and Actimel on TV advertising, Danone wanted to better understand the current and potential value of other media in building brand equity and driving sales. i to i  research was commissioned to conduct a multi-media tracking study to encompass TV, direct mail, vouchers and in-store promotions.

Insight
The research confirmed the effectiveness of TV advertising for both brands and, in the case of Actimel, the contribution of point of sale activity in shifting both attitudes and purchase intent. However, the research revealed a key insight about a particular point of sale issue for Activia. It showed that customers were not being reminded at the point of sale about the functional health benefits of Activia that the TV advertising was communicating.

As a result, when confronted by one fixture with all the different yoghurts, both standard and premium, it was hard for Activia’s premium price to be justified. Less than a third of people who said they were going to buy a premium product actually did, which led to the realisation that Activia and the whole premium category needed to be clearly distinguished from basic yoghurts, and presented and merchandised accordingly.