Campaign Summary

KangShiFu Juice, facing diminishing profit margins in retail channels, needed to break into the lucrative restaurant distribution channel dominated by carbonated drinks. The brand adopted an innovative "agent" approach, partnering with restaurants to co-create set meals and offering marketing resources to help them achieve "celebrity restaurant" status. This strategy involved driving online traffic through partnerships with Meituan and Douyin, encouraging dine-in experiences, and offering the chance for partner restaurants to be featured on a popular foodie show. The campaign resulted in significant brand lift, engagement, and distribution channel expansion, demonstrating the power of aligning marketing efforts with sales and distribution goals.

Strategy

Objective

KangShiFu aimed to break into the high-margin restaurant distribution channel, traditionally dominated by carbonated drinks, to offset diminishing profit margins in retail channels.

Context

The traditional B2B approach relying on a massive sales and distribution ground team had proven ineffective and unscalable. KangShiFu needed an innovative way to convince restaurants to carry more of its juice products.

Target Audience

The campaign targeted restaurants in China struggling with the competitive industry landscape, exacerbated by COVID-19 and the surge in food delivery platforms. These restaurants shared a common aspiration to become "celebrity restaurants" of viral fame.

Creative and Media Strategy

KangShiFu adopted an entertainment industry-inspired approach:

1. "Sign" restaurants as partners, offering marketing resources in exchange for co-creating set meals with KangShiFu juices
2. Drive online traffic to partner restaurants
3. Encourage customers to dine in at partner restaurants
4. Incentivize participation with the chance to be featured on a popular foodie show

Execution/Use of Media

The campaign execution included three main components:

1. Online Traffic Drive
• Partnered with Meituan to create a branded landing page for partner restaurants
• Leveraged celebrity Yang Di on Weibo to drive traffic
2. Dine-in Encouragement
• Created a branded challenge on Douyin encouraging users to film themselves trying co-created set meals
• Invited mega and micro foodie influencers from 29 regions to participate
3. Incentive Program
• Offered partner restaurants and influencers the chance to be featured on "Check In with Foodie Crew" show

Business Impact

Brand Lift

• Brand recognition increased from 52 percent to 76 percent among the target audience
• Perception of KangShiFu Juice as "appropriate with meals" increased from 39 percent to 53 percent
• Perception as "appropriate for social meal gatherings" increased from 31 percent to 44 percent

Engagement

• 340 million views of Douyin challenge videos (183 percent increase from previous campaign)
• 15,000 participating users (60 percent increase)
• 10.5 billion combined views of branded show topic on Weibo (34 percent increase, exceeding KPIs by 586 percent)

Distribution Channel Expansion

• Recruited over 16,000 partner restaurants (187 percent above target)
• Onboarded more than 7,000 new restaurants as distribution partners (344 percent increase from base)

The campaign's success led to the implementation of a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for collaboration between marketing and sales and distribution teams. This demonstrates marketing's pivotal role in achieving sales and distribution goals, unlocking unprecedented business value for the entire company. The innovative approach of turning restaurants into "stars" has set a new benchmark in the beverage industry for expanding distribution channels and enhancing brand recognition through creative marketing strategies.