Heinz Goes Ethnic to Win Major Marketing Award
Jessie Wong, Managing Director of Multicultural Marketing and Management with Paul Lennon (right) Marketing Manager, Meat and International, Heinz and John Lorenzo of the Australian newspaper who presented the award.
The humble can of corned beef is at the centre of an award-winning project which has won the Advertising Award at the annual National Multicultural Marketing Awards presentation dinner in Sydney on 16 November hosted by Premier and Minister for Citizenship, Morris Iemma.
The project carried out by a Sydney ethnic marketing agency – Multicultural Marketing and Management (MMM) - was a simple exercise to boost sales of the Heinz Hamper Brand corned beef, to the Maltese and Filipino communities around the Australia.
The Maltese and Filipino communities were chosen because it was found they consumed corned beef above the average rate for the community and really liked the idea of getting information, including news of promotions and competitions, in their first language.
Congratulating the winners, the Chair of the Community Relations Commission which has been running the awards for 18 years, Stepan Kerkyasharian, said: "This is a classic instance of a company effectively working the market place, through knowledge of ethnic communities and identification of their specific needs and desires. It was a very simple, clear and professional advertising and marketing campaign, proving yet again diversity is good for business.
"Through careful market research they discovered that one community liked corned beef for breakfast and the other for dinner. MMM geared their campaign to these preferences with translated and carefully tested advertising material. This included the use of actors with appropriate ethnic appearances for the print advertisements and for recipe brochures.
"MMM created traditional appetising dishes using Heinz Hamper corned beef and presented them with modern styling and imagery."
"I think there is something very nice about a multinational food giant which is normally associated with basic foods like baked beans and tomato sauce carrying off a major award for successfully targetting specific ethnic communities. This is the kind of entry that keeps these awards alive and fresh after so many years", Mr Kerkyasharian said.
Post campaign research indicated that because of the appeal of the advertising material and the promotional offer, people of both communities said they would in future buy the Heinz rather than any other brand.
"I would like to thank Paul Lennon, the Marketing Manager from Meat and International Section of Heinz for having the foresight to market to the ethnic communities in Australia," Managing Director of MMM, Jessie Wong said.
"He’s very open-minded to accept our innovative proposal, which was quite different from the traditional brand advertising. We are now helping Paul to market the Hamper Corned Beef to the Chinese and Vietnamese communities with yet another different approach."
Wong also thanked the team in MMM for making the project a success. Selina Kong for the excellent project management, Piyanuch T. Metcalf for the terrific creative, Renato Perdon and Maria de Carlo for their brilliant advice about the Filipino and Maltese communities, Frank, Tom and Mei for the swift fulfilment, the ethnic media for helping with the radio competition, Kim Rennick from Business Clarity for coaching the agency to its success.
"Finally I would like to thank George Miltenyi from EMD Workforce Development, who started this agency with his friends some 14 years ago. I worked as a junior consultant when I first came to Australia to now taking over the management a few years ago. It was an amazing journey and George has been a great mentor and model for me." Wong said.
