Ad Of The Month

Our top-scoring Asian ad this month comes from Danone’s Bebelac brand in Indonesia. Like most formula milk brands, the emphasis of Bebelac’s marketing has moved from direct advertising to mothers and babies – which attracts controversy – to a positioning based more on continued support for kids and their needs.

Helpfully, that also puts Bebelac in a strong position to make highly emotional, brand-building ads like this one, in which the brand celebrates its charitable efforts giving supplies to underprivileged kids at an Islamic school.

These kind of charity-focused ads often perform well, but they are not without risk – primarily that the brand gets forgotten in the joy of the charitable act. Bebelac take several effective steps to avoid this. They open with a mother and child wearing the familiar Bebelac colours. All their gifts to the school are heavily branded. The teacher thanks the brand by name. And they close with a pack shot.

All of this keeps Brand Fluency high as well as happiness and emotional response. In fact, the moment in the ad where Fluency increases the most – the bit doing most for brand recognition – is right at the beginning, with the woman and child wearing Bebelac colours.

The overall result is a 5.5-Star ad, an exceptional brand building performer which also gets into the top bracket for both Spike (short-term impact) and Brand Fluency. Most of this high score is down to the positive theme but Bebelac make sure they maximise their emotion with uplifting music, and by opening with the girl thanking all their friends (Bebelac’s customers) for their part in making the donations possible.

Finally, the timing of the ad for Ramadan undoubtedly helps effectiveness. Bebelac is not an Islamic-owned brand, but it does a lot of its business in majority-Muslim countries, and will be aware that Ramadan is the focus of a lot of Muslim charitable activity. By donating to children that are in need at this time of year, the brand is ensuring that it’s visible as a productive and beneficial part of the society it’s doing business in.

View the full in-depth ad report.