Elevating Haier: Enhancing Their Brand Awareness Through PR Solutions
Taking the Spotlight
Challenge
In 2015, the Philippines’ market saw increasing sales in home appliances, a business with which Haier is most familiar. With high hopes, the company sought to triple its sales by 2018 and take part in the region’s growth. To do this, the global domestic appliance company needed to elevate its brand among Filipinos.
Increasing Haier’s brand awareness was no easy feat. The Philippine market was saturated with similar Asian brands such as LG, Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, Hanabishi, and other growing companies lining up to compete. Haier wasn’t exactly the popular kid on the block for most people.
To stand out on its own brand, the home appliance company needed a partner that understood the Philippine market and knew how to engage it. That’s when the PR firm, M2.0 came in.
Approach
Haier was advised to do an integrated PR solution that engages Filipinos through print, broadcast, events, and online social networks—basically, in every media where Filipinos can be found. This approach is the best way to highlight such a broad product line. It answers the needs of a wide demographic of consumers who look for advice and info on different channels. After seeing the company’s work for other brands in the industry, Haier decided to work with M2.0’s dynamic team.
The outline for the year-long campaign was simple but required much from both Haier and M2.0’s Client Success Team. In the first quarter of 2016, Haier reintroduced itself to the consumers and the media. M2.0 understood that it was an opportunity to redefine what the company represented to Filipinos.
Haier needed to be more than an appliance company. Its message needed to focus on life, family, and the bonds that bring people together – like the ones that tie the Haier brothers, the company’s own iconic mascots, which was created to symbolize the partnership between the German company, Liebherr, and the Asian manufacturer, Qingdao Refrigerator, Haier’s parents. To that end, Haier’s campaign introduced a family-friendly face, helpful and eager to make his friends succeed.
A media event was held to introduce this aspect to reporters and bloggers alike. Haier’s products were also showcased. As the rest of the year unfolded, the campaign expanded and presented the company’s message through article and product seeding. It highlighted Haier’s ability to support, such as its after sales service, and the opportunities for success utilizing their products.
At the same time, a new more approachable personality emerged in Haier’s Facebook account. In sync with the PR approach, Haier’s social introduced the company and its products, and, most especially, helped purchasers resolve issues quickly. It featured products, revealed fun facts, shared lifehacks, related trivia about the company, and more to converse with its followers.
In the final quarter, just in time for the Philippine Christmas rush, the campaign went all out to highlight Haier’s products and corporate successes, including its achievement in having their appliances sent to space again!
Results
By the end of December, the campaign was featured by top publishers and high-ranking blogs ending with a yearly total of 606 million impressions on the Filipino public—enough for the entire population of the country to be exposed at least six times to a Haier story.
The company’s Facebook did great as well, adding an average 4.5 thousand followers each month, growing from 5,896 at the start of January to 53,044 at the end of December—ten times the original followers. Due to the growth, Haier ranked fourth among its local social media competitors in home appliances. Haier was one step closer to achieving its triple sales targets by 2018.
