Carat used media as a ‘vehicle for habit formation’ to launch Arla Foods’ new gut-healthy yoghurt, Arla Cultura.
‘We know that this product works best when it’s consumed every day and regularly,’ said Anna Wieczorek, an account director at Carat. ‘That’s something we had to consider when working on the brief — it’s not a once-a-week purchase.’
Carat’s strategy was a full-funnel campaign targeting 25-44-year-old consumers and featuring multiple touchpoints. OOH was the main channel, Wieczorek said, with the agency allocating the largest share of its budget (30%) towards it.
The biggest OOH activation was a 50-foot hand-painted mural by Global Street Art in Whitechapel, featuring a giraffe, a depiction of the product, and the words ‘Your gut is taller than a giraffe’. The agency also organised sampling around the site.
‘We wanted media to be a vehicle for habit formation. This meant showing up in moments throughout the day when consumers will be in the right mindset. Loads of people skip breakfast, so we wanted to leverage context and placements associated with morning routine — for example, the morning commute — hence why the mural is located next to a really busy station in London,’ Wieczorek said.
She added that weekdays, regular routes, and certain times of the day played an important role in helping Carat choose the placements for the campaign since they ‘lean quite organically into routine’ and forming habits.
The second-largest portion of the budget (20%) went to online video, CTV and SVOD, with ads on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Again, these placements sought to target potential customers at times when they were thinking about the following morning and what they would eat for breakfast.
The agency opted for CTV and SVOD placements since they have lower CPMs, Wieczorek said, adding that Netflix and Amazon Prime are cost-efficient channels that can be highly targeted and reach a wide audience.
‘Both platforms also have ad-pause formats, which increase the dwell time. When people stop their movies, they actually stay on for quite a few minutes, which is a really great cost-efficient add-on to complement the video strategy on these platforms,’ she said.
Around 20% of the budget was allocated to paid social, with ads featuring some of the brand’s own photos and videos, as well as assets from the mural. Eight percent of the budget went to digital display, 6% to print and publisher, and the rest to PR and experiential.
At this stage of the product launch, Wieczorek said, the main KPIs are trial and frequency since the main focus is to ‘drive conversion and make consumers pick Arla Cultura as their number one gut health product’. A big part of the launch this year, therefore, is being ‘really close to the point of purchase’ so that it is ‘as simple as possible’ for customers to purchase the product.
The product launch campaign will run throughout 2026, and the agency is in the process of planning its strategy for the following year; this, Wieczorek said, is difficult considering that they don’t yet have any results to inform the strategy.
‘Once we have the results back, we’ll do a review and be super flexible with our plans based on the learnings because I’m a big believer in econometrics,’ she added.
When asked whether there were any common product launch pitfalls they wanted to avoid, Wieczorek said that there’s a misconception that the launch of a product is only the first campaign:
‘Year two is as important or even more important than the initial launch phase. I think we should consider the first 18 to 24 months of the brand’s existence as the launch and act on that basis.’