How we launched New Zealand’s new national bird.

Background

It’s often said that the kiwi is the national bird of New Zealand. Perhaps it should be the chicken. From nuggets and drumsticks to classic Sunday roasts, New Zealanders can’t get enough of it.

But while the love affair between Kiwis and chicken grew, their love for Tegel, the market leader, hadn’t. With hundreds of products in their range and a lack of investment in brand strategy, consumers saw Tegel as a faceless, industrial chicken provider. To make matters worse, there were a lot of misconceptions. Some people thought Tegel chickens were pumped with hormones, locked in tiny cages, or even imported. None of these were true at all, but in an age when people are becoming ever more conscious of the origins of their food, it was doing the brand no favours.

So we were tasked with a complete brand transformation. We had to take it from a ubiquitous, faceless fixture of the meat aisle and show how much it was an integral part of New Zealanders’ lives.

Tegel Has The Meal For You

After a substantial brand redesign, we took the new-look Tegel to the New Zealand public with an animated TVC that showed no matter what meal people had planned, Tegel had something for them. Our distinctive TVC not only made Tegel relevant to Kiwis, it also gave it some much needed personality. 

The TVC is part of an integrated campaign that includes a new website, radio, print, out-of-home, and digital display.

Free Range

Now that we had people’s attention, we introduced them to Tegel’s Free Range chicken. Unfortunately, being a free range chicken, the star of our TVC didn’t stay still for long.

BBQurious

We built on our momentum by seizing an opportunity over summer: the classic Kiwi BBQ. Usually heavily based on sausage, steak and potato salad, we asked Kiwis to choose one of Tegel’s many BBQ-friendly chicken products and try something different on the barbie.

Results

Once a cold corporate entity, Tegel has won respect from consumers, with many saying they have both a positive connection to the brand and a high likelihood of purchasing it. What’s more, Tegel’s free range offering is now the preferred free range brand in supermarkets nationwide.