The great diet–losers winning

Both Spar Magyarország Kft. and TV2 both appear to be winners. Especially, since they have succeeded in finding a common marketing objective which will enhance the position of both brands in the long run. The Brand Care concept allows the message about health consciousness to reach consumers in an entertaining form, which makes communication effective. The “Great diet” is a licensed reality show composed of 16 episodes, originally by NBC television. Its message is that excessive weight is a disease which threatens one out of four Hungarians. 12 competitors try to lose as much weight as they can every week, with the help of two celebrity physical instructors. Since the business policy of Spar focuses on quality, it was an obvious choice for the sales team of TV2 to contact them. Spar has a wide assortment of healthy products and keeps its customers continuously informed about health related issues. Co-operation between TV2 and Spar has begun before the program. TV2 has organised a nation-wide series of events under the title “The great scaling” with Spar among their sponsors. .Most of these events were held in malls where Spar is present. Castings for the show took place in the parking lots of the most frequented Interspar stores. Airing of the show began in early October. Classic, 5 second advertising spots about Spar and an active lifestyle preceded and followed the show. Internet came useful as a solution to the problem that food cannot be advertised directly in the program. A sub-site has been established within the www.tv2.hu web site with different diets compiled by the two instructors for each week. A special online shopping list with recommended Spar products has been linked to the sub-site. – An element of our package is a license agreement which authorises Spar to use the title and logo of “The great diet” and photos of two instructors on POS materials – explains Zsóka Kocsis. Promotional leaflets of Spar published in 4,5 million copies each week have two pages about the program and related products.