Cider’s increasing popularity has led to a highly confused and competitive market.

Boundary Road chose a provocative, digitally-centric integrated campaign to launch into this market. The target was to gain 5% volume share in the first year; this was beaten within 4 months by 32 % with a media spend of just 7% of the market total. The financial target was to break even in the first year. This too took just 4 months.

As this was a completely new brand, they could not follow the tried and tested heritage route that the major players in the market had taken. Understanding this and knowing that consumers in the market were not specifically looking for a new brand to try, the new player in the marketplace had to get people to stand up and take notice, purely through its branding and creative.

The strategy involved creating an entirely new brand, Honesty Box Cider.

Knowing that Kiwis pride themselves as an honest bunch, the cider was  launched with “The Great Kiwi Honesty Test”. Packaging and creative were derived from traditional Kiwi roadside honesty boxes, positioning Honesty Box as a good, old-fashioned cider for honest Kiwis. Print, outdoor and online ads drove people to an online test where they answered provocative questions about their honesty. Everything on the consumer’s route from banner, to poster, to print ad, was carefully thought out with simple, yet eye-catching design that avoided getting in the way of the idea.

The questions were carefully selected to be fun, but not too challenging and were designed to intrigue and get people to spend as much time as possible. The honesty theme was carefully carried through all the writing.

Over 15,000 people took the test and, after a month, there were some interesting revelations: it was discovered that people in Tauranga are more likely to pee in the pool and you are less likely to give back a wallet if you are from Wellington.

The strategy paid off, as Honesty Box is now one of the fastest-growing traditional cider brands in the Kiwi market. Honest!