Case study: How Mr Chen’s invests in brand to make every day Dumpling Day

Mr Chen’s is the home of authentic Asian flavours: a family-owned business that has been bringing delicious dumplings to Australian households for over 40 years now. Overseen by sisters Lucy and Nancy Chen, Mr Chen’s sells everything from dumplings and gyoza, to baos and buns, to frozen ready meals.

Although Mr Chen’s is an accessible brand, easily capable of acting as an entry point into Asian cuisine for those unfamiliar, it’s also rooted in community and tradition. The family now plays a central role after the brand refresh in 2022.

“We wanted to modernise and explain the story of the family behind Mr. Chen’s, to show why we’re the flavour experts. We’ve given a face to the name and have showcased why we bring more relevance to Aussie consumers versus some of the major brands from overseas,” Dominique Grainger, Brand Manager at Mr. Chen’s, said.

This brand story has been reflected in the data, too, with consumers thinking the brand is “delicious” and “convenient”, as well as “diverse” and “authentic”.

By playing into the narrative themes of family and authenticity that sits at the heart of the brand, Mr. Chen’s have been able to increase their awareness by a huge 6% in the last year and, ultimately, build a wider, more engaged community.

Investing in brand has helped foster recognition and customer connection 🤝

Mr Chen’s launched a brand platform in mid-2023 that put dumplings at the heart of the weekday family meal, tied around the core messaging ‘Make It Dumpling Day, Make It Mr Chen’s’. The creative presented various products from the Mr Chen’s range – from prawn har gow to buns – for all five days of the week, served up around a typical Australian family’s dining table.

The 360-degree 'Make It Dumpling Day' campaign utilized a wide range of channels, including YouTube advertising, out-of-home placements, and in-store promotions, while leveraging shopper data to drive conversions. The campaign aimed to remind Aussies to have Mr Chen’s Dumplings for dinner.

“The Make It Dumpling Day campaign builds upon our current brand awareness, strengthens our brand identity, and invites customers to connect with us on a deeper level,” Brand Manager Dominique said.

As a result of this brand building activity, in the last year, from September ‘23 to Aug ‘24, Mr Chen’s awareness increased 6% from 39% to 45%, and their consideration ticked up from 30% to 34%.

There’s been growth in bottom-of-funnel as well, with a 2% increase in preference.

As an extension of the success of the brand platform, Mr Chen’s have rolled-out the National Dumpling Day initiative this year in September alongside a fun and interactive campaign featuring Aunty Chen, a character that echoes the aunties you see pushing yum cha carts at your local. Rolling around the cart on the streets of Melbourne one weekend, you had to hunt her down to get your hands on some free dumplings – a cheeky activation that was social media-friendly while also reinforcing the brand’s commitment to authenticity and tradition.

Alongside these big campaigns, Mr Chen’s invests in brand all-year-round, foster strong engagement with the customers through their Birthday club initiative, always on digital advertising, always on influencer strategy, competitions to loyal customers via their edm database and engaging with food influencers to enhance community credibility and collaborating with brands like Tefal, Choulee Bubble Tea and Kaiju Beer.

Insights support big ambitions 🚀

The continued investment in brand building has been supported by insights from Tracksuit, which identified the need to enhance their brand awareness and form deeper emotional connections with customers. “This finding was pivotal in securing stakeholder buy-in for a brand strategy evolution, which included strategic PR and media investment,” Dominique said.

How did this look in the dashboard? Essentially, Mr Chen’s noticed that while its conversion rates at the bottom are relatively strong, they faced challenges in raising brand awareness, especially as the category in the whole experienced a decline.

Tracksuit has also been essential for tracking how the brand performs against KPIs and to showcase the success and impact of its above-the-line campaigns.

“We have big ambitions for our brand,” Dominique says, “and Tracksuit is great for seeing how our brand health compares with other established brands in the market, especially on what key elements we’re excelling or underperforming on. It supports us to review what messaging to focus on.”