Launching Murasaki Japanese soy sauce to Asian-Australian shoppers

Challenge

Murasaki is a premium, authentically made Japanese soy sauce that was new to Australia. Before launch, it needed to build recognition and help shoppers understand its quality. The main audience was Asian grocery shoppers who regularly stock up at Asian grocers and supermarkets, plus people who love Japanese food and culture, especially those of Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Singaporean and Malaysian background.

What we did

I Search Marketing ran an integrated digital launch from 18 March to 7 May 2024:

• Programmatic display in NSW and VIC, aimed at grocery shoppers aged 25–54 looking for Japanese recipes online
• Australia Today app ads aimed at Mainland Chinese audiences in Sydney and Melbourne
• Redbook (RedNote) influencers who create home-cooking and recipe content, sharing Murasaki recipes
• A campaign website to tell the brand story

Results

• 5,023,415 impressions, 20% over the impressions KPI
• 367,915 people reached
• 5,176 clicks to the landing page (0.10% CTR)
• Display: 2,695,714 impressions, 0.07% CTR against a 0.03–0.05% benchmark, over-delivered by 15%
• Australia Today app: 2,298,449 impressions, 3,464 clicks, 0.15% CTR against a 0.10% benchmark, over-delivered by 28%
• Influencers: 29,252 post views, 2,251 engagements, 7.7% average engagement rate, 1,217 post collects
• Website: 5,446 views from 4.3K users

The 1,217 collects on the influencer posts show that audiences saved the Murasaki recipes to cook at home, exactly the kind of education a new premium brand needs. Both paid channels beat their CTR benchmarks and over-delivered on impressions. The report’s findings also show which audiences engaged most: the display ads reached more women than men, mostly aged 25–44, while men and the 35–44 age group showed the highest interest in the ad.