Bred in heaven - backed in Wales

The latest Welsh Beef marketing campaign secured a resounding home win with seven out of eight target consumers rating Welsh Beef as the ‘brand for me’.

The Hybu Cig Cymru-Meat Promotion Wales (HCC) campaign well surpassed initial goals by achieving 6.4m viewings by Wales and UK shoppers.

“It’s great for Welsh farmers and the rest of the supply chain that we’ve more than matched our goals for consumer response to the Welsh Beef campaign,” said Laura Pickup, HCC’s Market Development Manager. “We have carefully fostered within Wales’ consumer audiences a premium reputation for Welsh Beef products; its provenance, its role as part of a healthy diet and its effectiveness as a versatile, convenient, yet cost effective meat.

“The statistics show that Welsh Beef has been positioned to take a central role in the modern convenience lifestyle and it is seen as much more likely to be used as an ingredient in meals than other meats,” said Mrs. Pickup.

Independent media researchers verified viewing figures showing HCC’s Welsh Beef television advertisement reached six in every ten of those consumers considered to be future purchasers, lifted consumer awareness and recruited more buyers who agreed Welsh Beef was “a brand for me”.

The on-going “Bred in Heaven” campaign based around the autumn and Six Nations internationals also went down well with strong spikes of digital media interest during key game times.

“Over the years we have built up loyal support in the heartland home market but we know that can’t be taken for granted and it is essential we keep reminding our shoppers of why they should carry on eating and enjoying Welsh Beef,” said Mrs. Pickup.

Consumer awareness of Welsh Beef rose incrementally by two per cent to 59 per cent and HCC’s multi-media activity also recorded considerable increases in related page views - more than 60 per cent during the period when the TV ad was live with average time spent on pages increasing by nearly 35 per cent.

HCC launched the campaign in October, bringing the traditional pre-Christmas campaign forward out of expensive December media time. It ran on ITV and S4C through until mid November, looking to influence women shopping for premium meals, ABC 1 consumers and a broader band of regular beef buyers, and used social media and additional content to extend the campaign into the festive season.

“I’m particularly delighted that in devising our cost effective, strategic marketing interventions we highlighted three sectors of the Wales and UK consumer market and successfully delivered engagement with more than six in ten shoppers in each of those target areas.”