Notice something fun happening in the bottom right corner of this page? It's one of the ads that Naivas, Kenya's largest supermarket chain, used for its back-to-school campaign with Eskimi.

Naivas used to approach advertising the traditional way. It relied mostly on TV, radio, and print to reach consumers and bring them to one of its 84 stores across the country. 

The family-owned business has been working with Eskimi for the past two years on increasing visibility beyond these channels.

"Eskimi has played a crucial part in expanding our online presence and it’s been fantastic bringing our campaigns to life," Jecinta Wainaina, Naivas Marketing Manager, said. 

Naivas' first campaign with Eskimi

Naivas first display campaign with Eskimi had the main goal of raising awareness and bring more traffic to Naivas' stores, but the retail giant also wanted to brighten customers' spirits during difficult times.

"We were able to reach a lot of people and say that despite the pandemic and the economic downturn, you can still enjoy Christmas," said Gathuri Gathaiya, Digital Marketing Manager at Naivas.

"We managed to create a lot of awareness and brought significant traffic to our stores. This gave us plenty of confidence to continue working with Eskimi."

When we joined the Naivas team, the company did very little in terms of digital advertising and we had to prove to the senior stakeholders that the ads are profitable. Once the first campaign has started to yield results, getting budgets signed off was no longer an issue."

Driving engagement with custom creatives

Custom rich media is Eskimi's forte. From animated ads to swipe-to-reveal banners, Eskimi's creatives have been shown to resonate with people better than standard static ads. 

"We really appreciate the different ad formats Eskimi's design team can build for us. They put us in a unique position in terms of reach and we can choose exactly what to show to our audience."

"For example, in our most recent back-to-school campaign, we targeted parents with an animated ad of a backpack getting filled with essential school supplies. The ad had a 6.62% CTR, which is six times above the average rate for display ads."

This is the exact ad you see floating in the corner.

This particular floating ad also drove massive engagement (21%), achieved an 83% viewability rate, and hit nearly 288,000 impressions.

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"Other types of media have performed exceptionally well, too, at a 27% engagement rate. This means one in four website visitors interacts with our ad, which is by any measure a huge percentage."

Delivering exceptional brand experiences at scale

Naivas is now looking to switch to always-on ads, in a bid to engage with as many consumers as possible, regardless of seasonality. This is a major leap from what the retailer's advertising strategy used to look like. 

"We want to move away from campaign-based ads in order to continually increase our visibility," Gathuri says. 

"Thanks to Eskimi, we've managed to build a cohesive picture of our customers, including their demographics and location. We can use this data to create personalized ads that consistently build brand awareness and bring shoppers to our stores."

"As customers are increasingly bombarded with information from everywhere, it’s important for brands to stand out and engage their audience to take the desired action," adds Willy Kimani.