Danone goes Greek with new campaign

Danone Canada has launched a national campaign promoting its new Activia Greek yogurt, which comes in six flavours.

The campaign, created by Y&R‘s Montreal office, includes TV spots in English and French, digital ads, as well as billboards in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The TV spots run for four weeks, while the billboards will be up until mid-March.

“The key messaging is ‘all the goodness of Activia, now available in Greek,’” said Anne-Julie Maltais, external communication manager at Danone in Boucherville, Que.

Billboards feature the headline “Activia Goes Greek,” while the TV spot focuses on a woman’s morning routine.

On the PR front, Danone did a major media drop so influencers could taste the new product and, hopefully, talk about it, said Maltais.

Activia is the latest yogurt brand to get in on the Greek yogurt phenomenon, which was pioneered by Chobani in the U.S. In Canada alone, the Greek segment is now number-one in the yogurt category and represents 25% of total yogurt sales, according to Nielsen. Among the 83 new yogurt launches in 2013, 66% were in the Greek segment.

“Greek yogurt is so popular right and our fans are really loyal—we had quite a few e-mails and phone calls because they wanted Activia in the Greek format,” said Maltais.

The Greek yogurt launch is the first big initiative for the brand in 2014, the year it celebrates its 10th anniversary. Maltais said more big news is to come. “The idea is to make sure that all year long, we’ll have innovative and creative communications,” she said. “Activia Greek was the first step.”

This article appeared in Marketing magazine.