Difficult time filled with inspiring projects

The most interesting marketing campaigns of the last year?

2020 completely surprised us. And not only us. It is such a dramatic change that brought with it great limitations and made us stop and reflect on our life. We had to thoroughly consider which way we are going, as well as where and how we communicate with our recipients. The pandemic definitely affected our activities and directions of communication. During this period, we have decided to take a closer look at people’s needs – we wanted to examine their well-being, culinary preferences, habits and mental condition. In the Ahmad Tea London campaign, we return to an Audience with Her Majesty, i.e. talks over tea – conversations on important but also difficult topics during the current situation.  Tea accompanies us in various situations in our lives, that’s why we want it to be present with us at times that have a positive impact on our well-being. It is certainly one of our most emotional campaigns. We discuss the pandemic, we want to talk about how we felt when we suddenly had to change our habits, what happened to us when stress or anxiety increased. Furthermore, we also want to draw attention to how a topic as important as Mental Health is still taboo for some.

This year, we have been also surprised by the lockdown; who would have thought that families could be separated, that our loved ones could spend Christmas alone; that we will not be able to visit our parents, grandparents; that the elderly will be left without proper care. We also want to talk about loneliness, the lack of the possibility of daily family contact. Ahead of us is, a campaign focused on our relations with the family. After all, a visit at Grandma’s is the essence of family feelings, ties…

Key communication channels? How will this change in 2021?

Digital is definitely a key communication channel for all our brands. We are present and plan to stay there next year. However, we intend to experiment a bit and open ourselves to new social media, wanting to expand our audience. We also do not forget about radio or television – a radio campaign for the Ahmad Tea brand has just started and will last until the beginning of December.

The greatest challenges that the company faces.

We will certainly face the consequences of what the year 2020 has brought next year, in a negative, but also a positive aspect. On the one hand, there are restrictions in the Horeca sector – restaurants, hotels, cafés, that is where we were present with Ahmad Tea London. On the other, new distribution channels are opening, and Poles have finally noticed that the e-commerce channel, when it comes to shopping, is not so scary. We will constantly observe what will happen on the market, how we can find ourselves in this situation, as well as face what we will have to face and in what circumstances.

Next year, we are planning to introduce a number of new products to the portfolio of each of our brands and in various assortment categories. The dairy category and dairy products may prove to be a big challenge, as the distribution channels here are quite demanding. Working on introducing them will be a great adventure, as well as an interesting journey, not only a culinary one.

The most important trends for you.

Migration of customers to the Internet. Greater power of e-commerce in the food industry. The changing customer journey for our clients who start opting for e-commerce. We want to be more widely present there and develop our competences in this area. It will be our number one priority.

The trend of caring for health has also been observed for a long time. It inspired us to look for tea products that will support consumers during their diets, change of their eating habits or simply allow them to consciously support their activity during the day. The newest products of Ahmad TEa LONDON in our assortment fit perfectly into the pro-health trend – functional Benefit Blends teas: Beauty, Immune, Sleep, Slim, Energy and Digest. These are unique compositions of herbs and fruits, which are rich in vitamins B and C, whose role is to support and strengthen our body. This is extremely needed now. These are products that are becoming important in our communication.

The condition of the industry. Chances and threats.

It is hard not to look at the food industry through the prism of the pandemic. Of course, the situation does not look the same in all sectors, but the food industry has come out relatively unscathed from the pandemic, which does not mean that it has survived it without any turbulences. The pandemic is a kind of challenge that may, on the one hand, close some distribution channels for our products. On the other, it is a period that we definitely want to use as a moment for innovation, creativity and change. We also inform about our products differently. We feel that our customers need to know more about our products. We are changing our perspective, a situation that may not have happened before the pandemic.

Investments.

The beginning of 2020 was the start of a large investment for LEVANT. We took over the Milk Processing Establishment in Buk – one of the oldest facilities of this type in Poland, whose founding act dates back to 1882! This is a big event for our company, as well an expansion of our portfolio to dairy products of both local importance, as well as Middle Eastern ones. For example, we are the only producer in Poland that makes Labneh cheese – an Arabic yoghurt cheese. However, it is not only Labneh – we have recently been working on the recipe and production of akawi cheese.

We are intensively expanding the offer of our oriental brand Jasmeen, which will gain new products in the category of spices and dried fruits next year. We have also invested a lot of effort in changing the visual identification for this brand and this year we can already see the first effects of this change. Skivak was involved in Jasmeen’s image-building activities.

I believe that all our brands will also benefit from opening up to a new distribution channel that is important to us – e-commerce. In this regard, we plan not only large investments, but also a lot of innovations.