Faced with a highly competitive sales period and a smaller budget than its competition, Sunquick chose a unique path, partnering with individuals who weren't quite viewed as "influencers," but who held the key to brand and business success for the fruit juice company.
Objective
Ramadhan-Aid is the most crucial period for the cordial category. It's a time when consumption typically increases due to breaking-fast meals and open houses during Aid. For fruit juice brand Sunquick, this was an important period to drive sales. However, Sunquick faced an uphill challenge because of three key factors:
Sunquick faced a "David versus Goliath" challenge in taking on Ribena and other beverage brands during the most important period for its products. While the brand wanted to build engagement by using influencers, it needed to find an uncluttered/untapped influencer platform within the constraint of a small budget.
Context
Despite needing to achieve 40 percent of its annual sales target during the Ramadhan-Aid period, Sunquick faced budget constraints to combat media clutter. The agency was tasked with generating social buzz with a small budget to facilitate the redemption of 10,000 samples within 45 days. Historically, Sunquick has predominantly relied upon on-the-ground activations for sample distribution, making this the brand's first venture into a new platform.
Target Audience
The target audience for Sunquick's effort comprised of middle- to low-income groups within both Malay and Muslim communities. As they adapt to the fasting month, the consumption of social content tends to spike during the Ramadhan-Aid period. TikTok is their primary platform for short-form entertainment, particularly filling the time gap after sahur (6 to 9 a.m.) and before Iftar (4 to 7 p.m.).
Creative and Media Strategy
Discovering a surge in content from riders working for FoodPanda — a grocery deliver service — Sunquick launched a first-of-its-kind collaboration. Selecting 14 riders based on their organic followers, the brand transformed them into trained influencers through a workshop. Focused on highlighting Vitamin C goodness, these partners created content showcasing Sunquick's versatility. In return, the riders would be able to make extra income being an influencer for the Ramadhan-Aid period. This gave birth to the campaign, "Sunquick FoodPanda Mixologists."
Working with a constrained budget that prevented partnerships with more traditional influencers and recognizing FoodPanda as Malaysia's leading grovery delivery service, Sunquick saw an opportunity. FoodPanda riders, with their in pink shirts, were fast becoming recognizable. Many of them had their own social media following and were creating content for free for FoodPanda, especially on TikTok, where they had amassed 524.1 million views with videos using the hashtag #FoodPanda.
As Sunquick didn't have its own TikTok account and would be drowned out amongst more heavily promoted brands, FoodPanda riders provided the brand the perfect opportunity to gain more attention and traction.
The Sunquick FoodPanda Mixologists came in a group of 14 key riders. They were given the task to create content to show how they mix Sunquick with other complimentary mixers and how mixing just one bottle produces 50 cups. They were given a free rein to craft and curate the content in their own style. This was important, as authenticity was key to engage with their followers. The only rules were that they had to showcase Sunquick — which was not an issue as it was integral to the story — and wear their pink FoodPanda shirt.
The influencers were chosen based on the number of social media followers, the engagement rate they had, and the kind of content they produced. Their enthusiasm and authenticity were evident through their content — from Abang Goncang (translated to Shaky Bro in English) shaking his Sunquick in numerous ways to brand partners roping in other riders from Grab and LalaMove in a dance.
To create noise on TikTok, the brand flooded the platform with this partner content, all of it tagged with hashtags like #SunquickDiSisi, #NikmatDikongsiBersama, and #FoodPanda. The brand boosted the best performing content to drive more views. To help keep the momentum going, the brand also gave out 10,000 samples in Klang Valley, which could be selected via the FoodPanda app and redeemed at a PandaMart.
The Sunquick FoodPanda Mixologists campaign was built with a pioneering collaboration, breaking new ground by engaging FoodPanda riders as paid influencers and introducing PandaMart as a sampling distribution channel for the first time. The campaign not only surpassed its annual sales target, achieving 42 percent sales against the 40 percent goal set for the Ramadhan-Aid period, but also saw a remarkable 15 percent increase in PandaMart sales compared to Ramadhan-Aid 2022. Additionally, the 10,000 samples were fully redeemed within 21 days, surpassing the initial 45-day target.
The effectiveness of partnering with FoodPanda riders was apparent, as the TikTok videos resulted in more than 1.5 million views. The engagement rate was 18.1 percent against the benchmark of three percent.
This momentum trickled down to the bottom of the funnel, where the sampling activity had to stop earlier than anticipated, as the 10,000 Sunquick samples were redeemed within 20 days versus a plan for a 45-day redemption period. Sunquick also managed to increase sales in PandaMart, recording a 15 percent increase in sales vs Ramadhan-Aid 2022.
Finally, this exercise helped the riders to earn an extra income by being paid to do what they love: creating content. Due to this success, FoodPanda has started a new advertising stream to position their riders as paid influencers.
