CARREFOUR AFFORDABLE BANANA

TitleCARREFOUR AFFORDABLE BANANA
BrandCARREFOUR - ALL BRANDS
Product/ServiceFMCG
Category I06. Breakthrough on a Budget
Entrant OGILVY | SOCIAL.LAB BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Idea Creation OGILVY | SOCIAL.LAB BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Media Placement OGILVY | SOCIAL.LAB BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Production OGILVY | SOCIAL.LAB BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Post Production OGILVY | SOCIAL.LAB BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
Credits
Name Company Position
Bill Bilquin Ogilvy Social.Lab Senior Copywriter
Sébastien Stevens Ogilvy Social.Lab Senior Art Director
Nicolas Dansette Ogilvy Social.Lab Social Creative
Christophe Crasselts Ogilvy Social.Lab Head of Growth & New Business Director
Alizée Lippert Ogilvy Social.Lab Senior Account Manager
Gabriel Araujo Ogilvy Social.Lab Creative Director

Background

In December 2019, the news lit up with a viral story about a banana duct-taped to a wall that sold for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami, a project by performance artist Maurizio Cattelan. This was a story that the supermarket Carrefour couldn’t miss, as its core business idea “Act for Food” claims “Concrete actions for Better Food”. The program also proposes the most affordable organic product in Belgium.

Describe the strategy

The story trended on Saturday, and by Monday Carrefour had posted a tongue-in-cheek response on social media linking this pop-cultural moment to Carrefour’s Act for Food’s message: “With our organic products, culinary art is within everyone’s reach.” Our strategy was to bring Carrefour’s brand positioning “Act for Food” to new and existing audiences by capitalizing on trending social media topical conversations. By adding a fresh, and brand-relevant message to existing conversations, we knew we could achieve both talkability and visibility for the brand, putting it firmly within the consideration set for food shoppers. The story’s theme of outrageously expensive fruit selling as art provided the perfect tension to bring to life Carrefour’s Act for Food message - good wholesome food should be affordable for everyone. Given that time was of the essence, upon launch we strategically boosted the post with a small media investment of $3,000 to kickstart the conversation.

Describe the execution

The clear visual symbol of the story (the banana duct taped to a wall) opened up a rich creative territory for Carrefour – one which we knew would stand out in the social media space. In order to link this pop-cultural moment to Carrefour’s message, we insisted on our belief that fresh produce should be affordable. The social media posts mimicked the art piece and saw a banana sticked to a wall next to the actual price it would cost in store (€1.59). A carousel on Facebook and stories on Instagram were selected as the smartest media formats, allowing us to showcase a variety of organic fruits and veggies and creating a more engaging experience. The clickable or swipe-able links make it one of the strongest traffic-driving formats, so the execution was optimised to drive visits to the website. This successfully extended the post to deliver more value beyond awarness.

List the results

Within four days, our banana achieved a massive organic reach of 5,489,408 (vs. 712,576 paid reach), which equates 50% of Belgian population. The content was Carrefour’s best-performing Facebook post in 2019, delivering an engagement rate eight times higher than average. It delivered 678,151 clicks to Carrefour’s website – a very welcome traffic spike just in time for the festive season. Within Facebook the content garnered: · 24,527 shares · 1,372 comments · 8,725 reactions · 99.88% positive reactions The post was praised in 12 countries with 265 million impressions and 50% of the media coverage mentioning Carrefour in the headlines. So, with a ridiculously small media investment of $3000, we got a media value of more than $19 million, meaning that our banana was 160 times more valuable than a $120.000 banana. But above all, we made people know that with Carrefour, you can buy the best ones with cents.