Challenge: Despite innovations that made TenCate the clear leader in artificial turf, they were still held back by negative legacy perceptions of the turf industry in general; there were even efforts to ban turf in many areas of the country.
Objective: Change negative sustainability-related perceptions of artificial turf while solidifying TenCate’s position as the industry innovator and leader and increase turf adoption.
How we solved it:
Assess: Our research identified the key care-abouts of various stakeholders, material issues (e.g., product end-of life), perception strengths and weaknesses (e.g., PFAS and microplastics), how TenCate is viewed within that overall landscape, and opportunities (e.g., stakeholders are unaware of TenCate’s superior sustainability story compared to natural grass).
Prescribe: We created a communications construct called “Playing for Keeps,” which established TenCate’s position as an innovator with an eye toward the future and its long-term impact, supported by key pillars and reasons to believe: Engineering Solutions, Problem Solvers, Championing Circularity, and Unlimiting Play.
Plan: Using the “Playing for Keeps” construct as strategic guidance and inspiration, we created a marketing plan and campaign that targeted key stakeholders—from athletic directors and parks and rec commissioners to coaches and parents of youth athletes. Leveraging the surprising sustainability benefits of turf versus natural grass (no irrigation, no mowing, no fertilizers, recyclability), we told the appealing turf sustainability story people didn’t know.
Launch: The campaign launched with content that included digital and social ads, driving people to their website to learn TenCate’s full sustainability and innovation story, while simultaneously addressing negative perception issues of artificial turf through broad and localized PR efforts.
Results: Using ongoing campaign data, we optimized along the way, resulting in 1.1M+ impressions and 505.3K engagements on influencer’s posts, reached 2.2M users via social and display ads in our defined geographies, secured 16 placements with pertinent media, and 14.5K people visited the website during the short 3-month campaign period to learn more about Tencate’s artificial turf.