Kraft Tassimo

Television has the reputation for ad avoidance, but print advertising has long suffered the same fate. When reaching out to time-starved, Starbucks-loving, middle- and high-income women to build awareness of the Bosch Tassimo hot beverage brewer, Starcom MediaVest knew the target could hypothetically be reached by magazine, but didn’t think the planned creative would break through the mass of holiday clutter and functional appliance ads.

To stand out and help readers imagine the Tassimo in their kitchens, the agency inserted a clear acetate page with an image of the appliance in front of an editorial page featuring an image of a kitchen countertop. The result was a composite image which positioned the advertised product on the counter in the editorial spread.

SMG executed nine different Tassimo kitchen advertorials in English and French to connect with different readerships. For example, Toronto Life placed the product “in” an urban condo kitchen; for Canadian House & Home, it was a designer kitchen.

To negotiate the church/state divide between advertising and editorial content took dozens of meetings with publishers, editors and agency executives. But efforts paid off as a 42% lift in purchase intent and a 46% lift in brand favourability scores were measured amongst readers. This resulted in a 45% increase in sales in the month of November, followed by a 22% increase in December. All this resulted in a year-over-year increase of 18% in total sales, well above the 3 to 5% goal.