260 BRANDS
Changing what Lusaka pours — a door-to-door behaviour-change campaign for plant-based milk.
BTL ActivationDoor-to-DoorBehaviour ChangeFMCGNutra MilkThobwa
Client Overview
You can’t advertise a habit change. You have to show up.
260 Brands had two products — Nutra Milk and Thobwa — that could genuinely change the way Lusaka households consume dairy. The products were good. The proposition was real. But plant-based milk isn’t just a new brand to try. It’s a different product category. Switching requires understanding, trial, and a reason to change a routine that most families have never questioned.
That’s a fundamentally different challenge from awareness. And it demanded a fundamentally different approach.
- Households activated300,000+
- Individuals reached in person400,000–500K
- Covered door-to-doorAll of Lusaka
- Nutra Milk & Thobwa, on the spotDirect sales
The Challenge
Habits don’t break from the outside in. They break from the inside out.
Dairy milk is one of the most deeply ingrained household habits in any market. It’s what families grew up with. It’s what their parents bought. It’s the default. To change that default, you need more than visibility — you need a moment of genuine persuasion, at close range, with no distraction and no exit.
A billboard doesn’t create that moment. A social post doesn’t create it. Even a well-placed retail display doesn’t create it. The only thing that creates that moment is a real human being, standing at someone’s front door, with the product in hand and a story to tell.
The brief was as direct as the strategy: take the product to every household in Lusaka, let families taste it, explain why it matters, and sell it on the spot. No shortcuts. Every door.
- This was a habit change, not a brand switch — the hardest kind of sell
- Ads alone don’t change what a family pours at the breakfast table
- Dairy was the default — deeply familiar, trusted, and cheap
- The only way to change behaviour was to reach people where they live
Our Approach
House by house. All of Lusaka.
We built the activation around one non-negotiable principle: every household gets a visit. Not a sample of the city. Not the high-income areas. Every compound, every estate, every neighbourhood — the whole of Lusaka, covered systematically, with trained teams who didn’t just knock and leave a flyer but stayed, talked, demonstrated, and sold.
Full-City Coverage
Every area of Lusaka
Mapped and systematically covered every residential area across Lusaka — compounds, estates, and neighbourhoods — so no part of the city was left out. This wasn’t sampling. This was a city-wide behaviour change operation.
Door-to-Door Teams
House by house, family by family
Deployed trained on-ground teams to go house by house across Lusaka. Each visit was a conversation, not a pitch — teams explained the product, answered questions, and met families on their own terms, in their own homes.
Live Product Tasting
Taste first, decide after
Gave families the opportunity to try Nutra Milk and Thobwa before being asked to buy. Taste is the most powerful argument in any FMCG category — and for a habit change, experiencing the product is the only thing that actually works.
Behaviour-Change Education
Why plant-based, why now
At every door, teams didn’t just sell — they educated. Explaining the benefits of plant-based milk, addressing common objections, and helping families understand why making the switch made sense for them specifically.
Direct On-Spot Sales
From tasting to buying in one step
Removed all friction between interest and purchase. Once a family tasted and understood the product, teams closed the sale immediately — no trip to a store required, no second decision needed.
Household Activation Tracking
Coverage mapped, nothing missed
Tracked coverage systematically to ensure every household was accounted for and no area was revisited unnecessarily — giving 260 Brands a real picture of reach, not an estimate.
The Execution
What a city-wide behaviour change campaign actually takes.
This was one of the largest on-ground consumer activations ever run in Lusaka. Here’s what the execution looked like:
- Mapped the full residential coverage of Lusaka into a structured, trackable activation grid
- Deployed and managed on-ground teams to cover every area house by house
- Conducted live product tastings of Nutra Milk and Thobwa at each household
- Delivered structured product education and benefit communication at the doorstep
- Executed direct on-spot sales at point of engagement — no store visit required
- Tracked household activation and coverage across the full city in real time
- Activated 300,000+ households and reached 400,000–500,000 individuals in person
- Completed full-city coverage of Lusaka — every compound, estate and neighbourhood
Results
The numbers behind all of Lusaka.
- Households Activated300,000+Across all of Lusaka
- Individuals Reached400K–500KIn person, at the doorstep
- City CoverageAll of LusakaEvery area, every compound
- Engagement MethodDirect & liveTasting + education + sale
- Sales ChannelDoor‑to‑doorOn-spot conversion
- Sales FiguresAdd figureDirect Nutra Milk & Thobwa sales
Note: The direct sales figure for Nutra Milk and Thobwa can be added once confirmed. The final headcount figure (400,000–500,000) should be updated to reflect the verified number.
Business Impact
A city poured something different.
260 Brands didn’t run a campaign. They ran a city-wide conversation. Over 300,000 households across all of Lusaka were reached in person — not through an ad, not through a post, but at the front door. Families tasted the product, heard the story, and made the switch on the spot. That’s what behaviour change actually looks like. Not impressions. Not reach. A family in Lusaka pouring Nutra Milk instead of dairy — because someone showed up and made the case in person.
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