Knorr and Sweet Mother’s Day Menu

By Atim Nkese Nkpubre
My eight-year old daughter came home from school penultimate Wednesday with two miniature samples of Knorr seasoning mix for soup and stew, respectively. She said representatives of Unilever Nigeria had visited their school and distributed the packs to the pupils to take home to their mothers. Typical of kids, she didn’t leave my room that evening until she had extracted a promise from me to use her secret ingredients to cook for her as soon as I could.
The note that accompanied the gift read “Sweet Mother’s Day Menu.” And from the wordings of the love letter from Knorr, I reckoned the samples were meant to reach the recipients before Mother’s Day, but that couldn’t be achieved city-wide owing to the sheer logistics of covering a mega metropolis like Lagos. I got my
mail three days after Mother’s Day, but no wahala, as I’m still in the Mother’s Day mood.
After using the product, the one page letter from Knorr had a section for mothers to leave their personal details as well as their comments, thus achieving data capture and third party advocacy in the same breath.
I think what Unilver has done in this instance is a novel approach to experiential marketing. The company has simply cashed in on the tenacity of kids to reach their target population - mothers. Such campaigns should be prosecuted with caution, though. From the look of things, I will buy these products because Her Majesty, my Princess, has decreed so, and if I find it useful as its literature prescribes, then just know that I’m sold!
I love freebies. Most people do, really. So the next time Knorr is about to pull this sort of stunt, they have a ready beneficiary in me! And please, I expect bigger satchets this time around, I have a large family, you know. Unilever, manufacturer of leading brands in food, home care and personal care can send the gift alongside other items such as toothpaste, detergent, toilet soap etc in a goody bag, perhaps. Just kidding!
What Unilever did is somewhat symbolic and such outreach programmes should not be restricted to Mother’s Day alone. We want to be pampered and appreciated on a regular basis because every day is a mother’s day as far as running the home is concerned.