Centrum tracks mindset shifts in diverse communities

Centrum, the GSK Consumer Healthcare-owned vitamin brand, is trialling a new approach to tracking how diverse communities have shifted their thinking during COVID-19.

What it’s doing

Sentiment-tracking technology is being deployed to assess how topics of growing interest, like wellness and proactive healthcare, are being discussed in publications aimed at particular communities in four select EMEA markets (UK, Italy, Germany and Saudi Arabia). Insights thus gleaned can inform focus groups and tweak media strategies.

Why it matters

The research approach in itself isn’t groundbreaking, but it does signal a new intent at a major FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) business. Six months in, Marketing Week reports that GSK will either expand what it’s trialling with Centrum into new markets, or, possibly more significantly, take it across its other brands, effectively mainstreaming the process. 

Takeaways 

• Media isn’t always where you think. Centrum found it could reach a Turkish audience in Germany by advertising in Turkish media, since many of the Turkish community there consume a lot of media from their home nation.
• An understanding of how people in Saudi Arabia think about fitness prompted Centrum to sponsor the Dubai Fitness Challenge.
• Health articles in LGBTQ+ publications are more likely to be about the immune system and immunity than nutrition; the sentiment of articles is more likely to be negative than positive.

The big idea

“It feels like we’re setting ourselves up to fail if we’re trying to have more genuinely diverse, inclusive creative, yet right from the start of the process we’re not listening to what those different communities are saying” – Jerry Daykin, senior media director/EMEA, GSK Consumer Healthcare.

Sourced from Marketing Week