It’s a miracle that takes up to 21 months in the making, in a heaven where the purity of its wind-swept geographical location, volcanic terroir, and time-honoured approach to farming translates into an award-winning artisanal product that is pure and like no other.
Background
Japanese Beef, or in Japanese translated as Wagyu, is sourced straight from Japan and is famous for its flavour and quality, graded for its recognisable marble texture. In fact, there is nothing else quite like it, and it is farmed only in regions within Japan.
Every 5 years, Japan holds the most respected championship in the whole wide world to find the best wagyu. The last Wagyu Olympic held in September 2017 brought over 400.000 craft beef producers from 39 prefectures all across Japan. Kagoshima beef, known as Satsuma Gyu, is proudly crowned the top prize based on the overall contest score, which makes it the best Wagyu in the world right now.
Satsuma Gyu is a prized and highly valued ingredient. To make it available in Indonesia and safe for everyone to consume without exception requires intensive labour of work. Unfortunately, the market is not well informed that to consume it safely, it requires Halal and strict shipping procedures to keep the product at its best quality when it reaches the consumers. This issue gives room for many shady importers to cheat their way in to provide a more competitive price to the market. As a result, the market opt-in to a more affordable priced Japanese wagyu without knowing if the product they consume is safe (free from bacteria while being shipped) or even Halal*.
*Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, with 87% of the population identifying themselves as Muslim. To be considered halal, the cows are killed by hand and must be blessed by Muslim slaughtermen, trained and certified by attending special halal slaughterhouse courses, which is a mandatory requirement for any imported meat to enter the growing Indonesian market.
In November 2020, supported by JETRO (the Japan External Trade Organization), PT. Subur Arta Utama as one of the largest beef importers in Indonesia approached BrandWorks to deliver their vision: to combat the shady imported beef industry by providing product education, and raising the profile and engagement of Japanese Wagyu in Indonesia.
Collaborating closely with PT. Subur Arta Utama, BrandWorks put together a comprehensive brand awareness framework that aims to meet the objective, which includes:
Campaign ideation, strategy, and story
Campaign identity creation
Campaign touchpoints planning
Campaign execution across different media platforms (product development, newspapers, magazines, online blogs, social media channels, website and product collaboration with chef and restaurant)
Our Approach
Inspired by the beautiful and abundant place where the Gyu comes from, we interpret Kyushu Island as the idea of ‘heaven’ on earth; the perfect place to raise the perfect livestock by the hands of the master wagyu farmers. The campaign positioned itself as the bridge for the heavenly produce and made it accessible to customers.
Understanding the Indonesian market, we need a strategic way to deliver the message that the campaign holds. The campaign’s tone of voice needs to communicate the idea by encouraging people to spark their curiosity about the campaign itself while being straightforward with the offer at the same time.
The Challenge
The challenge of this project is to communicate a product that was once only available to a niche market, to a bigger audience that relatively was not the brand’s target market. To do this, 7 different activation touchpoints are created. Each one is crafted carefully to deliver a specific message to a specific target market.
As part of the strategy, a collaboration with a well-known public figure in Indonesia is done. We engaged Arnold Poernomo — one of the most well-known celebrity chefs, who is also a judge in one of the biggest Indonesian cooking show — to create a special menu using Satsuma Gyu that is easy to be followed by everyone at the comfort of their own home. This touchpoint resulted in some media coverage that helps to raise the brand’s awareness. In total, there are more than 20 media and blogs that cover the story.
The Results
In just 2 months, the search for the keyword “Satsuma Gyu” in Indonesia has risen dramatically. This shows that the market has started to notice the brand and has been showing interest in it by searching on Google.
PT. Subur Arta Utama has been receiving new leads that seek further information about Satsuma Gyu. The campaign has reached out to over 15 million people in Jakarta through its various touchpoints.
It has also been featured in many well-reputed media, such as Kompas and CNN Indonesia.
BRANDWORKS STUDIO
BrandWorks are a multi-disciplinary team committed to developing strategic design solutions for FMCGs, Hospitality, Commercial Property, Digital Online brands and Fit-for-Purpose Retail Destinations. We have offices in Melbourne, Newcastle, Jakarta and Changsha, China. What makes us stand out from the crowd is that we’ve been there. From business management to ownership to operation, our experiences with and love for great design guides our process. We believe that our clients’ success supports us and vice versa. So together, we’re building a global business community curated for success with innovative and intelligent design.
Let’s bring the extraordinary to life.