TVNZ and oOH! embrace smell-o-vision for My Kitchen Rules promo—UPDATED

It has been talked about for years—and experimented with from time to time—but, in what could be seen as the opposite of pull my finger, mall wanderers who push a button on a billboard will get to sample the smell of homemade cooking as part of a new campaign by oOh! Media and TVNZ to promote the new season of My Kitchen Rules Australia.

Utilising oOh!’s retail network, specially built panels dispense specific aromas and play audio of the hosts Pete Evans and Manu Feildel promoting the series when shoppers press a button in shopping centres in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

“It was essential that we created a solution that stood out from the crowd given that they are vying for attention among a cluttered category,” says oOH! New Zealand’s general manager Cameron Taylor. “Collaborating with Starcom and TVNZ we have been able to develop a highly impactful solution that is bound to capture maximum attention and engagement from shoppers passing these special builds.” 

Chris Hooper TV2  & pay channels marketing manager says the sensory execution combined with the wide reaching shopaLite solution created a compelling concept to support the latest series of the top rating Australian cooking show. And, in keeping with general trend towards promoting shows, there’s also a digital element to this campaign. 

“Shoppers who tweet us with what they’ve smelled with #MKRScent have the opportunity to win some coveted official MKR aprons. So having this opportunity to create a two-way connection with our audience, as well as a full sensory experience, was too good an opportunity to resist.” 

The campaign runs for four weeks, with different scents and audio running across different centres, supported by 65 digital portrait and landscape retail panels that will reach more than 5.5 million shoppers each fortnight. 

With Beck’s recently releasing its playable posters, it’s good to see marketers and agencies recognising the power of a button. Although it’s going to be hard to beat this execution. 

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The first show of the fifth season of the Australian version of My Kitchen Rules screened on Monday night. The first show attracted 398,260 viewers, which wasn’t enough to put it in the top five shows of the night (One News took top spot with 733,820, followed by Shortland Street: 568,110, The Force (464,350), Seven Sharp (447,420) and Border Security (436,870). 

The Aussie version will serve as an entree to the New Zealand show, which is set to air on TV One later this year and will be judged by Auckland chefs Ben Bayly and Gareth Stewart.

UPDATE: 

TVNZ has provided the first week’s results.

• On average over 400,000 New Zealanders have watched each episode of MKR in the first week
• In TV2’s target demo of 18-49 year olds it has dominated its time zone every day since launch attracting more than double the audience compared to any other channel at the time
• Its audience share among 18-49s has also consistently grown over the last 3 days – Last night 41% of the available 18-49 audience watched MKR
• MKR’s launch week has attracted higher ratings than launch week in 2013 among 18-49s – 12.7 rating for first week in 2014 vs. 12.1 average for first week in 2013
• In key commercial demo of Housies, it has achieved stunning ratings with the second episode averaging 18.9%

Source: Nielsen TAM, Overnights. Ratings include TV2 Plus 1 and share is for TV2 only

• Based on overnight ratings, it is already the third most watched show in 2014 among 18-49s, preceded by TV2’s Shortland Street and Big bang Theory.

Source: Nielsen TAM, Overnights (January 2014 – 7^th April 2014)

Credits:

Creative Agency: Blacksand

Media Agency: Starcom

Client: TVNZ