Specially Selected Pork Campaign Raises Logo Awareness

As a highly versatile protein which is great value for money, the overall pork category at retail level has largely benefitted from the slow economy over the past few years.  According to Kantar WorldPanel, the volume of fresh pork sold at retail level in GB has increased by a 2.6% year on year to exceed 172,451 tonnes in August 2011; this built upon an increase of 5.8% in volume sold in the previous year. The growth in fresh pork sales in recent years has largely been driven by new shoppers entering the category.

In order to encourage consumption of Specially Selected Pork in Scotland and increase the retail market share, the principal objective for Quality Meat Scotland’s (QMS) marketing activity is to increase logo awareness whilst giving the customer a compelling reason to purchase.

Following a recent marketing push by QMS on behalf of the Scottish pig industry, consumer awareness of the Specially Selected Pork brand has increased in Scotland.  Initial findings from independent research company IGD, suggest post-advertising recognition (within target markets) of the Specially Selected Pork logo has increased to 35% when compared to pre-advertising logo recognition of 26%. 

The online survey commissioned by QMS, was conducted in two bursts to track consumer awareness and perceptions of the Specially Selected Pork logo pre and post advertising. In order to measure the success of the advertising activity, a representative sample of the core target markets was used for Specially Selected Pork in Scotland.

An increase in awareness comes after the recent “Look for the Label" campaign which encouraged shoppers to look for the Specially Selected Pork logo on-pack as a guarantee of provenance, high welfare, taste and quality.  The pan-Scotland campaign ran over a 4 week period between 22 August and 18 September 2011 with a programme of outdoor, online and press advertising activity. 

As well as tracking the awareness of the logo, the research also tracks advert recognition.  More than a third of those interviewed recalled the advertising and 27% remembered the strapline of the advert. This is higher than similar campaigns run in the past. The targeted above-the-line activity was estimated to reach circa 1.6m consumers in Scotland who had on average, 6.9 opportunities to see the advert.

The “Look for the Label” campaign aims to communicate the benefits of purchasing Specially Selected Pork and provide compelling reasons to look for the label at the point of purchase. For example, the advertisements highlight the association with the Scottish SPCA (Scotland’s national animal welfare charity), whose inspectors visit Scottish pig farms and processors under the QMS quality assurance scheme, ensuring the strict animal health and welfare standards which underpin the label. 

In order to measure attitudes towards the label, the extent to which consumers agree with certain image statements when referring to Specially Selected Pork was measured pre and post campaign.  Agreement with all image statements increased post-advertising. These statements included produced to “Higher Standards” (up to 62% from 50%); “Higher Animal Welfare” (up to 40% from 36%); the “Best Available” (up to 39% from 32%); would “Pay More For” (up to 37% from 29%).  

It was reported that there was higher agreement from those who recognised the advert compared to those who did not, showing the advert creative had a positive effect on perceptions of the logo.

The second stage of the post-advertising analysis will use a face-to-face methodology, focusing on a representative sample of the Scottish population (rather than core target markets). This will allow for further comparison with previous years’ campaigns. Kantar WorldPanel data will also be used to monitor the campaign’s effect on sales of fresh branded product.

In conjunction with the advertising activity, a programme of in-store activity was carried out with Brand Ambassadors and point-of-sale materials across targeted Scottish Tesco, ASDA and Sainsbury’s stores.  Through this activity, around thirty thousand Specially Selected Pork recipe booklets were distributed directly to consumers.  Further success of the campaign is evidenced by the three thousand requests for recipe booklets received via the campaign website. (www.speciallyselectedpork.co.uk/porkrecipebooklet).