#OnShelf: Meaty campaigns

by Louise Burgers. From Engen to Eskort and Burger King, it’s all about quality taste, convenience and affordability.

Engen launches private label Quickshop & Co. 

Engen has launched its own private label convenience brand, Quickshop & Co. with all products in the range locally sourced. Engen’s general manager: retail, Seelan Naidoo, explains: “The range of proudly South African products is available at participating Engen Quickshop stores including a braai range.” The braai range includes the essentials needed for a perfect braai, including: briquettes, firelighters, sauces and spices, paper straws, serviettes, light and heavyweight foil, sea salt and black pepper, utensils, serviettes, water (Sparkling & Still), plates and cups, and a Birchwood Cutlery range. Customers can choose between four marinade flavors – barbeque, spicy, sweet & sticky and sweet chilly – all of which are ideal for basting or as a marinade for chicken, chops, steak and ribs. The full seasoning range is gluten and preservative free, with no added MSG or food colourants.

“Our authentically South African private label Quickshop & Co. range offers exceptional value and convenience for our customers as well as recyclable and sustainable packaging. Research has shown that our customers are cost and value-driven, and we have taken great care to offer them locally produced products that are sourced from within each surrounding province,” adds Naidoo. Plans ahead include the launch of the Quickshop & Co. biltong, dried fruit and nuts range this month.

Eskort’s tasty new brand refresh

MetropolitanRepublic won Eskort as a client last year and embarked on a brand refresh of the 103-year-old brand. The agency was tasked with a new corporate identity for Eskort and the launch of a new creative platform with a campaign to solidify the brand with SA consumers. The refreshed corporate identity presents a newly developed typeface and iconography that speaks to the textures of our country. The new creative platform ‘It’s Eskort’ becomes how the current payoff line ‘Life’s Delicious’ is “helping Eskort cement its household name status among certain consumer segments and grow awareness for its best taste and safety reputation”, says the agency. Taking this new corporate identity and positioning to market is a 360° campaign that’s dominated by television and digital because they both offer high reach nationally, build reach fast versus other media platforms, and offer the ability to use and leverage similar content.

Eskort’s group marketing manager, Marcelle Pienaar, explained: “The pork category is facing several challenges right now. South Africans don’t buy and consume enough pork products. They are simply unaware of the myriad consumption opportunities. Our challenge to MetropolitanRepublic was four-fold: educate our consumer groups; differentiate the Eskort brand; build brand recognition and quality, taste and safety attributes; and build relevance and emotional connection with the youth. Doing this, we know, will revitalise the entire category,” she added. The agency’s response to Eskort’s request was to disrupt the convention that pork should be positioned on quality and safety alone. While pork plays a major role in our food culture, pork is not always top of mind, says Paul Warner, MetropolitanRepublic founder. “What’s a breakfast without bacon, what’s a hotdog without a vienna, what’s a kota without polony – but, come mid-week, we don’t look to pork to rustle up a chop dinner or, come Sunday, to pork to serve up a roast. For the majority of us, we think chicken or beef; pork is not top-of-mind. The campaign is setting out to change that. Therefore, its messaging revolves around creating top-of-mind awareness for the pork category by highlighting not only meal occasions but the health benefits, convenience and various taste profiles that pork delivers.” The personality of the television campaign, which sees two executions, one which launched in November and one in January, has a tone that is local, loud, proud and humorous. You can watch the commercials here and here.

What’s in the box?

Burger King has launched its Mystery Burger. Ezelna Jones, marketing executive at Burger King South Africa, explains that until the end of February 2021 fans can purchase a Mystery Burger Box for only R29.90. Each Mystery Burger Box randomly contains one of eight premium Burger King burgers. The Double Whopper, Big King XXL, and Rodeo King, are just some of the premium burgers that fans might find inside of every Mystery Burger Box. “We know that January and February are usually budget months for many South Africans. For the price of Burger King’s most affordable burger, you can now experiment and possibly discover your new favourite burger for 2021,” Jones says.

Louise Burgers is the Publisher and Editor and Co-Founder of RetailingAfrica.com. She has spent over 20 years writing about the FMCG retailing, marketing, media and advertising industry in South Africa and on the African continent. She has specialised in local and Africa consumer trends and is a passionate Afro-optimist who believes it is Africa’s time to rise again and that the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) will be a global gamechanger in the next decade.

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