Bord Bia - TMG Communications

The Context

Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, promotes Ireland’s unique food and drink, which come with one-of-a-kind natural origin and are produced under the world’s leading sustainable, food safety and quality management.

With increased Sino-Irish bilateral trade, Bord Bia is poised to bring its premium food produce to the Chinese dining table, and invite the local consumers to experience delicacy from the “Emerald Island”.

The Challenge

Compared with its established foreign competitors, Irish food is relatively a late-comer into the China market. It is a challenge to establish the brand awareness in a short period of time amongst the market clutter, and engage 2B and 2C audiences.

The Opportunity

While other players make efforts to westernise the Chinese diet habits, Bord Bia finds the niche to blend into the traditional Chinese cuisines that have been passed down for centuries. Extensive market research has been done by Bord Bia prior to the market entry, so as to find the most suitable food produce, which can be used as ingredients of traditional Chinese dishes. And 2B and 2C channels are identified to engage target audience.

To communicate the unique Irish offerings and establish the brand awareness in China, TMG has been engaged as the retainer agency to weave together an integrated brand marketing plan, underpinned by crisis management to safeguard the reputation.

Our Strategy

Green the Chinese dining table by creating Chinese dishes inspired by premium, natural and safe Irish food produce, and pulse the content through multiple communications channels and trade iniatives.

Our Approach

Establish an integrated communication hub to connect with key media stakeholders and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) for both trade and consumer audiences;

Generate content through co-creating Chinese dishes with well-known Chefs and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) for trade and home cooking.

Tailor content for 2B and 2C channels and corresponding audiences.

Design and manage offline events and online campaigns to generate awareness peaks and drive conversion, to supplement regular media engagement and social media brand and product education content publishing activities.

78 MEDIA AND 22 KOLS ENGAGED

136 CLIPPINGS WITH EVA OF €1,614,519 GARNERED

360,000,000 IMPRESSIONS ACHIEVED

——2019 OVERALL RESULTS

Key Initiatives

Press Briefing

Minister Visit & JD.com MOU Signing Ceremony

In conjunction with the Irish Minister for Agriculture Food & Marine’s visit to China, TMG planned and managed a press briefing for Bord Bia in Beijing. Served as a close encounter for core national media, F&B KOLs and trade partners with premium Irish produce presented through traditional Chinese recipes, the event provided key updates on Sino-Irish bilateral trade in the beef category, as well as Bord Bia’s marketing initiatives in working closely with China’s leading e-Commerce platform JD.Com.

One-on-one media interviews were arranged for the Minister and Bord Bia CEO for in-depth stories.

39 pieces of traditional and social coverage with more than 5.1 million impression.

VIP Trade Event

Master Series

To promote the USPs of Irish beef, TMG engaged local and national media, as well as trade KOLs in the Master Series Culinary Ceremony for Bord Bia in Shanghai. Via tasting the iconic Chinese dishes prepared by four Culinary Masters in the region, our key stakeholders had a better understanding of the green origin and premium quality of Irish beef, as well as their versatility and value in their application of the Chinese traditional dishes.

49 pieces of traditional and social media coverage with more than 12 million impression.

2C Online Campaign

JD.com St. Patrick’s Day Promotion

Bord Bia kicked off its first 2020 Campaign, #Irish National Day Food Carnival campaign with JD Fresh in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. In response to the consumer mind-set and purchase behaviour changes during the Covid-19 pandemic in China, TMG suggested working with top-tier and mainstream KOLs in creation of home-cooking friendly recipes using Irish beef and dairy products, and putting together a robust social content plan that covered owned platform and earned KOL posting across different phases of the campaign.

6 KOLs were engaged in imagery and video content creation of 8 recipes using Irish beef and dairy products. Their social posting generated total impression of over 23 million. And Bord Bia’s owned Weibo gained almost 2,000 followers.