Watsons looks for clarity

Watsons launched the activity with a campaign in Thailand using the strapline ‘What’s in your Watsons?’, created by BBDO and Proximity Hong Kong.

The project is the first from the agency pairing, which Watsons appointed last year, severing the brand’s two-decade relationship with Ogilvy & Mather.

We realised that one of the main challenges for Watsons has been that customers have struggled to define what the brand is about, said Margaret Siew, regional head of marketing.

While our brand recognition is strong, one of the challenges for us has been for customers to know what we’re really about.

This is partially related to the nature of Watsons’ business. It has four key categories: health and wellness, hair care, skin care and beauty products. We’re basically competing with anyone who sells any one of those four categories, said Siew.

Siew, who spent nine years at PepsiCo before starting at Watsons two years ago, has made strong branding the core of her marketing strategy for the region. Her dissatisfaction with the test results of
the branding ideas Ogilvy brought to focus groups led to the opening of the account for pitch last September, from which BBDO and Proximity emerged victorious.

However, the decision to concentrate Watsons’ media business at OMD was part of a broader consolidation strategy, she said.

The resulting branding strategy developed by the new agency team has been tested in Taiwan, Philippines and Malaysia.

The agencies came up with some really good branding ideas. We put the three main ones through rigorous testing in three carefully chosen markets, where they were all perceived as being authoritative and believable, said Siew.

The three test group markets were selected as a representative cross-section of cultural mores in different Asian regions.

The campaign will run across all 11 Asian markets in which Watsons has a presence, and the roll-out will be complete within a year. However, Siew declined to reveal which market would follow Thailand.