A Strategic Approach to Building Brand Awareness

Client

Midea Appliances

Category

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Combining Global Strength and Local Engagement in a Competitive Market

Midea Group, a global manufacturing leader with over 56 years of innovation, faced the challenge of introducing its brand to the Canadian market, where it was largely unknown. Despite its global success, Midea needed a tailored strategy to create brand awareness and connect with Canadian consumers in a competitive appliance market. Our goal was to position Midea as a trusted brand while highlighting the unique features of its products in a meaningful way.

The "Who"

Midea Group is a global leader in manufacturing, with a long history of innovation and business growth across multiple sectors. As a Fortune 500 company, Midea’s mission is to humanize technology—offering customized solutions powered by deep insights into human nature, alongside cutting-edge robotic and automation technology. With 56 years of manufacturing excellence, Midea continues to push boundaries and embrace the future by constantly evolving to meet the ever-changing demands of its global customer base.

Midea’s vision is to bring great innovations to life, and its mission is to integrate with the world to inspire the future. The company’s core values—Customer Centricity, Aspiration, Dedication, Collaboration, and Innovation—guide their work and ensure that each product and service is designed to make a real impact. With $52.96 billion in revenue and over 190,000 employees, Midea’s reach spans across the globe, positioning them as a formidable force in the industry. However, despite their massive global presence, the Midea brand was not well-known in certain markets, including Canada, which presented a unique opportunity and challenge.

The "Who"

Midea Canada, a subsidiary of Midea Group, is a global leader in the production of home appliances. Based in Canada, the company offers a wide rangeof products including air conditioners, dishwashers, and laundry units. Midea is recognized for providing affordable yet reliable home appliances to customers across the country. However, despite its global success, Midea faced significant challenges in penetrating the Canadian market and needed strategic support to build a stronger online presence.

The "Why"

Midea approached us with a challenging question: How do we launch a new product for a brand that no one has heard of in Canada?Despite their significant global presence, Midea was virtually unknown in theCanadian market, making it a challenge to introduce their innovative products.The objective was clear—Midea wanted to establish their brand in Canada, but the challenge lay in how to create awareness for a brand that had no local recognition, while also highlighting the key features of their new products in a meaningful way. How do we position Midea as a trusted brand and connect with consumers in a crowded and competitive market?

The "Why"

Midea initially reached out to Insurgency to support a digital marketing campaign for their air conditioners, with the goal of increasing retail sales.However, during our discussions, we identified key issues: the products were already sold out at major retailers, there were issues reporting sales back to the Global Head Office and the pandemic had made it challenging to reach consumers through traditional channels. The client lacked a clear digital presence and hadn’t fully explored the power of SEO or website optimization.Our role evolved from simply supporting a campaign to helping Midea re-evaluate its digital strategy for long-term growth nationally.

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The "What"

What do we need to do to introduce Midea, a global brand, into a Canadian market that had no prior familiarity with it? While Midea has significant recognition worldwide, it was essentially an unknown entity in Canada’s highly competitive appliance market. With an already feature-rich category, the challenge became how to highlight Midea’s product features in a way that cut through the clutter and resonated with Canadian consumers.

We had to figure out how to communicate the value of their product offerings and integrate them into the daily lives of potential customers. What we needed was a compelling way to connect with consumers at the right time, on the right platform, using language and messaging that spoke to their needs and desires. Our goal was to build brand awareness in a market saturated with well-established competitors and create a memorable impression that would ultimately lead to sales.

The "What"

The key challenges included:

Product Availability: Midea’s air conditioners were out of stock in many Canadian retailers, limiting the scope of the digital campaign.‍
Lack of Online Presence: Despite offering quality products, Midea lacked an optimized online presence, limiting their visibility and searchability.‍
Retailer Challenges: Products were not being displayed effectively online or in physical stores, making it difficult to build consumer trust.

Our goal was to pivot the campaign to focus on brand building with a long-term digital strategy, including an SEO and website overhaul, that would position Midea as a go-to brand for home appliances in Canada.

The "How"

Our strategy began with an in-depth analysis of the Canadian market and the best platforms to use based on budget and audience alignment. Since Midea was new to this market, we needed to identify which platforms would be the most effective for building brand recognition and consumer engagement. Once we identified the most relevant channels, we focused on which global assets could be leveraged and which would need to be customized for the Canadian market.

We worked with the Midea team to ensure that the global brand message was aligned with the Canadian market’s preferences, ensuring that all creative assets maintained brand consistency while also adapting to local nuances. We knew that to create meaningful connections with Canadian consumers, we needed to combine global strength with localized engagement.

The "How"

Our strategy evolved after conducting thorough research into Midea’s products and their presence in Canadian retail locations. We discovered that many Midea products were sold out, confirming the need for a shift in focus.Instead of a paid media campaign for air conditioners, we proposed a more sustainable approach, including:

SEO Implementation: We suggested an SEO audit and website improvements to increase organic search visibility for Midea products.‍
Website Accessibility & User Experience: We advised on a website accessibility audit to ensure Midea’s website was user-friendly and search engine optimized.‍
Reallocation of Budget: With the inventory situation in mind, we recommended shifting the digital budget away from paid media to digital capital projects that would have a lasting impact.

This strategy aimed to improve Midea's long-term presence in Canada and address immediate challenges like product visibility and accessibility.

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The "It"

Once we defined the best platforms and selected the right creative assets, we moved into media planning and creative execution. We tailored the creative content to fit the chosen platforms, ensuring that the messaging was not only consistent with Midea’s global vision but also resonated with local consumers. The media plan was designed with careful consideration of audience segments, ensuring that Midea’s product features were highlighted at key touchpoints that would drive engagement and awareness.

Digital advertising, search campaigns and social media campaigns, the content was crafted to align with the target audience’s preferences, focusing on the unique selling points of Midea’s products. The goal was to not only generate awareness but also drive actionable results that would translate into consumer trust and, eventually, sales.

The "It"

The solution involved multiple key components:

SEO & Website Optimization: We completed an SEO audit and implemented a strategy that improved Midea’s website search ranking. This involved fixing on-page issues, creating better content structures, and focusing on user experience (UX).
Website Rebuild: We led two website rebuild projects: the first focused on optimizing the site structure, moving from product listings to a more intuitive, category-based format. The second rebuild involved migrating Midea Canada’s site from WordPress to AdobeExperience Manager (AEM), providing a more robust and scalable platform for future growth.
Ongoing Media Campaigns: Insurgency continued to manage Midea’s monthly media campaigns, optimizing spend on Google Search and Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram)to target key seasonal products.

These combined efforts helped Midea build a more accessible, search-friendly platform while positioning their brand as an industry leader in home appliances.

The "Results"

The results of the campaign are still being tracked and analyzed, but early indicators show that our strategic approach was successful in creating meaningful brand awareness for Midea in the Canadian market. We are monitoring key performance indicators such as engagement rates, media efficiency, and, ultimately, the conversion of brand awareness into product sales. The next steps will focus on refining our approach based on these insights to ensure ongoing success and optimization.

The "Results"

The outcome of our collaboration with Midea was significant:

SEO Improvements: Organic traffic increased due to the enhanced SEO strategy and website changes, allowing Midea to rank higher in search results.
Website Success: The website rebuild resulted in a more user-friendly experience and increased conversions. The second migration to Adobe Experience Manager positioned Midea for long-term digital success.
Effective Media Spend: Our strategic media campaigns drove visibility and sales, even with limited budget, by focusing on highly-targeted Google Search and Meta campaigns.
Continued Growth: Insurgency’s work with Midea extended beyond the air conditioner campaign, leading to future collaborations on new product categories like dishwashers and laundry units.

Midea’s investment in a robust digital strategy has provided them with a strong foundation for ongoing growth in the Canadian market, with measurable results from SEO, website optimization, and paid media campaigns.

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