Case Study: Hot Pot x Hot Choc
Whittard of Chelsea
At Hot Pot China, we are guided by our key principle of creating value (创造价值), which helps inform an insight-driven approach to our media executions for clients. During Singles Day, Our client Whittard of Chelsea wanted us to take such an approach in order to grow awareness and ultimately performance of their wider Hot Chocolate range flavours in China.
Here’s a summary of what Chen and the Whittard Team did to drive strong results:
The Context
Tmall, the Chinese e-commerce platform, was seeing costs increasing approx. 18-25% year-on-year during Double 11 for the same ratio of sales last year. Whittard needed to build up brand awareness outside of the platform ahead of Double 11, rather than continue to depend on high CPMs and big discounts which would harm brand equity.
The Challenge
Whittard dominates the Hot Chocolate category in China. So we knew if you’re searching for Hot Chocolate, you’ll come across the brand. There wasn’t depth of understanding though, and the challenge was to maintain high sales across their product portfolio.
The Insight
Far from having a lack of awareness of Whittard, the insight was that the target audience did not have as great an understanding of the many ways in which you can enjoy Hot Chocolate authentically as first thought. Whittard primarily needed to educate and deepen understanding of Hot Chocolate’s versatility, and Whittard, given its dominance as a Hot Chocolate brand, would see growth as a result.
Whittard of Chelsea’s Hot Chocolate portfolio is wide and versatile
What we did
We analysed and ultimately chose Douyin’s new interactive ads, targeting baking and hot chocolate interest segments. This helped us to tell a deeper brand story, as well as drive traffic towards the Whittard Tmall store.
The Results
1,808,658 million views (+20.6%KPIS)
13,481 clicks (+19.8%). Strong consumer sentiment of wanting to try more Whittard Hot Chocolate flavours, demonstrating that the campaign had helped broader goal educate on Hot Chocolate. Here are two excellent quotes demonstrating this from female Chinese consumers on RED.
“I’ve been purchasing Whittard for 3-5 years, their tea is also great
“I’ve tried their orange hot chocolate ..it is so unforgettable!”
If those hot results steamed impressive, and you’d like us to help your brand see similarly strong digital marketing results in China, get in touch with us at nihao@hotpotchina.com
