Kerry invests £5m in marketing for blended oat and dairy product Smug

The campaign for the new dairy product range was developed by BMB

By Creative Salon

22 May 2024

Kerry Dairy Consumer Foods, home to some of the UK and Ireland’s leading dairy and plant-based brands has is releasing a category-first product range supported by a £5 million marketing investment across TV, out-of-home, PR, influencer marketing, and organic and paid social media.

Smug Dairy is a disruptive new brand that combines the goodness of dairy and plants into one tasty product. This unique blend of oat and dairy offers consumers a healthier, more sustainable way of consuming dairy without compromising on that rich, creamy taste. The delicious new Smug Dairy product range includes milk, cheese and butter.

Developed by BMB, the TV campaign launched on 20 May and introduces Smug Dairy as the new way to do dairy in a radically tempting and unmissable way. The ad creative cleverly tells the untold love affair of oat and dairy who have long lived separate lives, but deep down have always dreamt of being together in perfect harmony.

The new ad gives us a sneak-peak into the goings-on at the supermarket after hours, where we observe a romance between a carton of dairy milk and a carton of oat milk. They “stare” across the aisle at each other, all the while the famous duet “Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers plays.

As the song plays the romance intensifies and the cartons start to edge closer and closer to each other. Then just as the iconic chorus is about to start, they fall off their shelves and hit the floor, causing both cartons to burst open from the top. In beautiful slow motion, the dairy and oat milks fly towards each other as if they are leaping to meet one another across the aisle before colliding and blending together.

This will be supported by BVOD and CTV, planned by Dentsu, as well as a YouTube campaign and a Love Island VOD package scheduled across the summer. The out-of-home activity includes Large Format digital, Transvisions, Digital 48 Sheets and 6 Sheets, supported by a paid social media campaign across Meta and TikTok.

Victoria Southern, strategy, marketing and innovation director at Kerry Dairy Consumer Foods said: “With this first-to-market category launch, it was essential to invest in a robust, integrated marketing approach and we are excited for the TV ad to hit screens across the country. It delivers against our ‘better together’ messaging, painting the picture of a romantic match made in heaven whilst amplifying the playful and warm tone of the brand, which we feel will resonate with consumers.”

The ad launch follows a successful soft launch that started with the innovative new product range hitting industry headlines. This was followed by national and consumer coverage off the back of media sampling activity, getting SMUG Dairy in the hands of leading journalists across the country. Running alongside this was a supporting influencer programme, with content sitting on influencer channels as well as brand social channels, which were created and managed by Aduro Communications.

A robust shopper campaign executed by Melli saw the SMUG Dairy range building distribution across Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. An in-store sampling activity will also be occurring in key Sainsbury’s stores, giving shoppers the opportunity to trial the range. Shopper communication, from magazine adverts, in-store POS, social media adverts, online banners and digital coupons are helping people to discover SMUG Dairy and trial the range. A six-week nationwide interactive sampling activity will commence at the end of May across key retailer partners timed to coordinate with the TV campaign.

Southern continued: “Introducing a brand-new concept to a historically binary industry presented a fundamental need for a marketing campaign centred around brand education which has formed the basis of our strategy. This is an exciting launch for Kerry Dairy Consumer Foods as we continue to deliver against our mission to reimagine dairy through innovation and sustainability to inspire a better future.”

The marketing brief has been executed by four industry-leading agencies; BMB, Aduro Communications, Dentsu and Melli, working in collaboration to get conscious dairy lovers aware of and buying SMUG Dairy.