Client Brief
Jacob’s, a brand of Danone Malaysia, initiated the Jacob’s Walk of Life as campaign to update its image and breathe new life into the brand. After conducting a brand survey, Jacob’s was confident it could capture a larger share of the market by focusing their reach on young working professionals and young Malay families in urban areas. At the same time, Jacob’s desired to ‘own’ the health platform when it came to biscuits and snacks. In efforts to meet these goals, Danone Malaysia sought the expertise of Essence Communications to plan and manage a PR campaign to support it the Jacob’s Walk of Life.

The Challenge 
The goal was to design a PR campaign that would complement Jacob’s marketing and advertising activities to make the Jacob’s Walk of Life campaign a success and at the same time, promote its brand’s health emphasis in a more modern and effective manner. The PR activities needed to effectively reach Jacob’s target market – younger working adults and young urban Malay families.

 Activities had to ideally make the best use of media personalities Azizah Ariffin, Fara Fauzara, Faizal Ismail, Owen Yap and Lynn Lim who had agreed to endorsed the campaign and be Jacob’s Walk of Life campaign ambassadors.

Essence’s PR Strategy
The PR campaign had to communicate one message consistently – that Jacob’s is an advocate of healthy living – and this was done through a range of creative activities using media as the main communications platform.

In the early phases of the campaign, two series of branded articles was produced to create a strong relation between Jacob’s and balanced nutrition – the first to leverage on the Chinese New Year festivity and the second to create recipes that gave consumers new and interesting ways to eat their Jacob’s, with the help of a renowned foot stylist.

A media workshop cum getaway was held to officially kick off the campaign and pre-event interviews with celebrity campaign ambassadors was conducted to reinforce Jacob’s campaign key messages and generate hype about the Jacob’s Walk of Life

Another set of interviews with celebrity campaign ambassadors were carried out after the event as a platform for them share positive effects from their involvement in the campaign and to sustain awareness of Jacob’s community building efforts.

Essence strongly encouraged Jacob’s to seek the endorsement of the Ministry of Health to lend credibility to its campaign and to build a long-term working relationship with the Ministry. The Ministry supported the Jacob’s Walk of Life campaign by authorizing use of its logos on campaign materials and carrying out health checks for the public during the event. The Deputy Minister also graced the event as Guest of Honour.

Results

• Jacob’s exceeded their targeted participation with approximately 2,700 registered participants for the Jacob’s Walk of Life on 24 June 2007. 
• Essence’s fresh and convincing PR approach successfully sustained media interest in the Jacob’s Walk of Life which took place on from January 2007 to August 2007, generating approximately RM3 million in PR value. 
• Milward Brown’s Advanced Tracking Programme showed in increase in Jacob’s’ nutritious and healthy attributes by 16 and 17 points respectively by July 2007. 
•  TNS consumer panel showed an increase in total brand penetration local households by 4.1 points in Malaysia and 5.2 points into Malay households by July 2007
• Market tracking found greater brand recall amongst its target consumers after the Jacob’s Walk of Life