Inside: Sofit’s companionship to lift the lockdown on passions and hobbies

As the world steadily adopts the ‘New Normal, the ’Rediscover your passion with Sofit’ campaign encourages the consumers to re-ignite their lost hobbies and passions. We speak to the brand-agency duo to deep dive into its making and execution.

Launching the digital film ‘Rediscover your passion with Sofit’, Hershey’s India aimed at encouraging consumers to live their passions, boost their energy and lead an active lifestyle, as they step ahead each day stronger during this lockdown. The film captures Sofit as the perfect companion to lift the lockdown on people’s passions and hobbies because it provides consumers with healthy energy to do more in our daily lives.

Campaign Insight

As we adjust our daily lives with the ‘New Normal,’ Sofit wanted to share with the consumers a positive take on how the lockdown has resulted in a few ‘collateral benefits’. One such benefit being the re-kindling of our passions, be it exercising, cooking, gardening, or dancing. Sofit tapped into this insight, encouraging consumers to lift the lockdown on their hobbies and passions by providing them with the ‘healthy energy to do more’.

“It has been observed that while everyone is trying to go the extra mile to fulfil their daily chores, work, and hobbies, they need that healthy energy to keep them going. Thus, through the ‘Rediscover Your Passion’ film, Sofit encourages the consumers to continue pursuing their hobbies and passions with vigour, shares Sarosh Shetty, Marketing Director, Hershey India.

Campaign Objective 

Sofit’s equity in India has been built on the
‘Protein +’ proposition and the benefit of ‘Healthy Energy to Do More’. This
new communication is aligned with the brand proposition, which is about `doing
more’ in our daily life, even while at home.

From Ideation to the Execution

Shetty highlights that the idea stemmed from the insight that while the lockdown is challenging for all of us, it has opened doors for pursuing a new hobby, or picking up old hobbies, passions, and skills while at home. “We wanted to encourage our consumers to re-ignite their passions in an engaging and intriguing way. The story of the film has been projected from the lens of ‘inanimate objects longing for their utilization by human beings,’ with a fun take on it,” he adds.

The film deciphers the idea of objects coming to life in a creative way; wherein various inanimate objects such as a piano, paintbrush, skipping rope, gardening tool, dumbbell, and frying pan metaphorically rejoice at finally being put to use after such a long time.

As the film was shot during the ongoing pandemic, the team had to work with limited resources. This meant everything from in-house shoots with the models, to mix and match of available resources. The film was shot in two locations – Mumbai and Goa - with the dubbing eventually being done by the director himself!

"The conceptualisation and writing was the easy part. The execution too wouldn’t have been such a problem, had we used stock footage. But we wanted to stay away from the expected method of using stills with a parallax effect that was being replicated across every other ad. So yeah, we decided to do more and shoot every scene in the film," shared Steve Mathias and Priya Pardiwalla, VPs & ECDs, Wunderman Thompson, Mumbai.

The duo further informs that most of the objects were shot by the director Shujaat Saudagar and he successfully got every single one of them to act :) Some of the scenes were shot in Goa by a friend DOP and seamlessly edited here in Mumbai. Even the Sofit packs for the shoot were delivered by the local grocery store.

Creative brainstorming under lockdown

Commenting on the brainstorming process while social distancing and arriving at the campaign idea, Shetty says, “It is key to ensure that the creative, along with reflecting the current reality and consumption trends, is also in sync with the brand identity. Once that was in place, we accelerated our process and deep-dived into finding the right director and ensuring that the production values, music as well as other key creative elements were of high standards. This was done in a nimble way with a bias for strong output. This is the ‘new normal’ of creative development as well”.

He
further informs that multiple rounds of revisions were conducted to ensure that the
team creates an impactful piece of communication which positions Sofit as a
brand encouraging the consumers to do more, be more and achieve more.

The creative agency initially came up with various ideas to communicate & engage in the most effective way. Then the brand team worked with the agency partner over two weeks to finalize the script, tone, look, and feel of the film.

"There really is no substitute for a face to face conversation/brainstorming with your partner and the leaps and jumps that come from it and video calls can never replicate that magic, but we’re adapting to it," thinks the creative duo at Wunderman.

They recall further, "Earlier to fix on an offline, the concerned people would all meet at the studio and collectively agree on an edit. Now a lot more time is spent in coordinating than in creating. Has everyone seen the edit? Will all the points be covered? Should we go over the points once again just to be sure? Lots of time spent in emailing, downloading, contemplating and relaying the feedback."

Also, now when edit or even track is sent to you for approval, sometimes, you can’t entirely erase the background noise at home.

Social Media Play

Sofit claims that the brand’s #EnergyToDoMore campaign mirrors the current ‘WFH situation’ and highlights the brighter side by ‘Rediscovering our passions & hobbies’.

Also Read: Inside: An ad created at home for a bank account that can be opened from home

To amplify this, they looked at a digital-led campaign that was set to drive awareness and generate buzz. The campaign was initiated by influencers from the field of art, sports, dance, music, and food to tell their story and motivate their circle of influence to reignite their lost hobbies & interest during the current situation.

“We also built a YouTube campaign targeting consumers with hobbies and interests like fitness, cooking, gardening, DIY, playing musical instruments. To aid them with Sofit’s ‘healthy energy to do more,’ a call-to-action led them to a campaign landing page, and further to their favourite delivery partner for a seamless shopping experience,” Shetty shares.

The Output

According to the brand, the campaign has garnered 3.2 % CTR and generated 4 times the planned clicks. Within two weeks of the launch, the campaign delivered a reach of 3.2M on YouTube (YT) against a plan of 2.1M with a view rate of 40%.

The creative idea was manifested on YT through sharp targeting using specific keywords like ‘sports & fitness - no equipment exercise’, ‘home workouts’, ‘lifestyle hobbies - healthy cooking’, ‘gardening’, ‘yoga at home’, ‘no gym weight training’, ‘healthy & clean eating’ and ‘10 min workouts’. The team identified about 800 keywords to define this precision targeting. 

The campaign is integrated with
Digi Commerce driven through Shoplyst.

Consumers are constantly looking for products that are enablers in their journey towards a better life. “There has also been an increasing focus on health and BFY products. We need to be relevant to consumers in these changing times by being agile and adaptive,” adds Shetty.

In the hindsight, sharing the two cents on distance working becoming the new norm, Steve and Priya assert that we have to keep the focus on creating and not controlling. "Don’t insist on multiple calls and updates from your teams, give them the time and space to come up with ideas. Have faith in your people. Don’t think they’re asleep if they don’t answer your call. Group calls take up a lot of time and energy, which is better used to bring an idea to life," they concluded.