We grow Romania BIO, together!

Investing in BIO agriculture is a concrete ACT FOR FOOD through which Carrefour provides healthy, high-quality food at fair prices, for consumers everywhere in the world. In Romania, only 1% of total agriculture production is BIO and the consumptions sums up only 2% of the retail market. Thus, Carrefour launched in February 2019 We Grow Romania Bio, A CHAIN REACTION PROGRAM, that supports local producers to switch to BIO agriculture. This would eventually lead to the growth of local BIO products’ offer, lowering shelf prices and thus grown the BIO product consumption in Romania. However, it still needed to increase the demand for BIO consumption- sound simple. While 83% of omanians declare they choose BIO products on a monthly basis, 77% of them do not actually understand what BIO really means! On top, for 63% price is the main decision factor and BIO products are 2-4 times more expensive.

Our mission? Close the circle and effectively introduce BIO to Romanians by 1. informing them about 2. engaging them with and, ultimately, 3. making them buy BIO products.

Who where we talking to? Carrefour’s target: digital savvy families and young professionals, considering food the main factor for a healthy lifestyle (89%), researching online (74%) for information and following influencers to better understand products’ benefits (49%)

Our solution? Give something to get something. Just like basic commerce rule.  This time though, we used the two barriers that keep the consumption low to intercalate them and solve them. How? We put together an apparently traditional in-store tactic: DISCOUNTS, dynamically connected with a digital communication mechanics: SHARES, breaking the two barriers. This is how it went: (1) Carrefour plants information about BIO agriculture and BIO benefits both offline and online. (2) Consumers find the info and post /shares it online under #WeGrowRomaniaBio. (3) With each photo shared by a consumer under the platform hashtag, the shelf-prices for BIO products drops in 5 stores in Romania!

For three day, we took over both digital and offline touchpoints to get consumers to tell, in order to get consumers to buy. We launched the campaign at an offline, yet digitally infused event- BLOGGERS’ Food Camp, where we developed BIO- inspired experienced for influencers to share with their communities. In the meantime, dedicated social media content was shared on our platforms, generating engagement in the community .The story was created also in offline, at a BIO cooking show in Sibiu, European Gastronomical Capital, where 3000 guests attended the show, discovered& shared BIO benefits.

We broke the information barrier, reaching over 800.000 people in digital who found what BIO really means and engaging 12 influencers in our story! We directly engaged 3000 consumers, trying BIO products at our event and sharing the info online. Over 4000 shares and 10.000 positive interactions generated a 20% discount for BIO products, breaking the price barrier for consumers! The 20% discount generated 45% increase in sales!

It was not about telling vs doing, but it was about dynamically connecting the two, in a mix of communication channels- a digitally enabled dynamic connection, efficiently linking offline, online and in-store.