2022 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Wilson, Canada’s top insect repellent brand, leads sales with 28% of market shares. However, its main competitor, Ortho, isn’t far behind with 27%. Wilson needed to outsmart competition with an innovative approach that would disrupt the category, as well as maintaining 2020 sales levels, considering the uncertainty of another COVID year.

When an insect invasion occurs, consumers panic and default to searching online for quick solutions. They are spurred to action within the next 48 hours despite not knowing which product to buy. They will usually Google “big dark, hairy, insect with 6 legs” hoping to identify the intruder and learn how to get rid of it. Unfortunately, this can be difficult as there are more than 55 000 species of insects in Canada and more than 150 different products to choose from. The hundreds of different products are even more confusing for the consumer as they lack differentiation from one brand to another. Worst of all, insect invasions are unpredictable events! People can't anticipate when tiny invaders will enter their beloved home, and their anxiety levels go to the roof when it happens. Knowing that, Wilson saw an opportunity to be top of mind in consumers’ heads before they even knew they needed the product.

With this mentality, Wilson became Canadians’ insect invasion saviour by building a solution to help Canadians predict the unpredictable. With a 3-step strategy, they connected their media channels to several data points so that their communications would be as relevant as possible to the consumer. Step 1: The experts at Wilson helped them identify which insects were more prone to infest according to the different weather triggers. By gathering all the data on the most common insects and rodents, they determined an exhaustive list of conditions that cause their proliferation.

Step 2: Based on consumer research and trends, they were able to map the most infected neighbourhoods across Canada. They created a first-to-market audience targeting connecting with people based on an extrapolation at the scale of the postal code (FSA) they live in. Banners were activated based on infected FSA to push the best product solution to their pest problem. Moreover, the FSA data were integrated into search ads to personalize text ads based on the user location, redirecting them to the closest resellers.

Step 3: Wilson’s product data was then transcripted in a matrix crossing different types of insects with their infestation triggers and integrated into The Weather Network first-party data feed. To connect with people when their household might get infected, the ad triggered prospecting audiences only when the ad met all the experts’ infestation data. Then, they needed to push the specific creative related to the problem they could face. Every combination of creatives was connected to their API directly inside the banner to integrate into their Bug Report. This tool helps users tracking the level of insects in their region and its integration adds contextualization and clouts into their creative. Thanks to an efficient data strategy and an innovative partnership with The Weather Network, Wilson has been able to educate Canadians on possible insect invasions.

The result: they recorded a global sales increase of 2.5% in the pest control category. A great surprise considering that they anticipated flat results year-over-year due to uncertainties related to COVID. They reached a high level of engagement on all creatives: they outperformed with click through rates (0.75%), which is more than double The Weather Network’s benchmarks (0.30%). Some of their creatives even got up to 5 times over the anticipated
results (2.22% CTR).

Credits

Touché!
Wilson
Premier Tech