Branded Content

Since established in 1971, Uni-Noodle has preserved the goodness in its noodles with very little flavouring and led Taiwanese instant noodles market. But in recent years, competitors start to create variety with loads of condiments, being the leading brand does present its challenges. The existing consumers may appreciate Uni-Noodle’s taste, but feel it lacks a sense of newness. The younger generations do not feel emotionally connected with Uni-Noodle. 

 

Hence, it presents our challenges as how to re-create the product value and rejuvenate the brand image.

 

We took the advantage of the plain flavour of Uni-Noodle to invent various creative Uni-Noodle fusion recipes based on moods. Then, we created a fictional noodle shop, the “House of Little Moments”, as the background in our story and filmed a micro movie series. The owner of the noodle shop, who is as old as the brand, makes fusion Uni-Noodle recipes that are inspired by customers’ moods.

 

By doing so, we were able to tell consumers that Uni-Noodle can not only be seasoned with ingredients, but also be flavoured by moods.

 

The micro movie series got over 8.7 million views on YouTube within 3 months. The sales increased immediately. We even opened a real “House of Little Moments” due to the positive responses.

 

Now, Uni-Noodle doesn’t only symbolize simple, delicious instant noodles, but has evolved into a mood-expressing food brand.

This case study described how Canesten, a vaginal yeast infection treatment in Hong Kong, transformed an unspeakable social taboo into a hot topic in town.

 

Canesten, a self-medication available from any local pharmacy, is an effective solution for vaginal yeast infection, a common condition for women. Yet we faced a big barrier – Chinese women are embarrassed to discuss the topic, let alone to mention it to a pharmacist in a public area. Thus we had two clear objectives: to remove the taboo on the subject, and to empower women to ‘speak up’ to get help.
 

We decided to clear this big cultural hurdle by leveraging an even bigger pop culture trend.  While women in Hong Kong refuse to open up about their personal health condition even to their closest girlfriends, they make no secret of their K-pop and K-drama obsession. So we developed a code word by twisting the word for vaginal yeast infection, ‘Yum Tou-Yim’ (陰道炎) into a hunky Korean-sounding name ‘Kum Tou-Yin’ (金道賢) to pique interest, and to eliminate the discomfort about saying the word out loud. We then created an online Korean-style drama series, revolving around a woman with a secret she was hiding from her friends, to help lift the taboo and get people talking – all with minimal paid support.

 

Within just one week, our webisodes ranked in the top 15 most-viewed YouTube videos in Hong Kong. Not only did ‘Kum Tou-Yin’ become a hot topic of conversation, it also triggered a +50% jump in online searches of the term ‘vaginal yeast infection’, boosting category awareness.  Moreover, our campaign marked a +41% increase in enquiries at pharmacies and +25% sales growth in just one month. We have successfully erased the embarrassment surrounding the subject and revolutionized communication of the pharmaceutical industry with one single code word.