In the Philippines, MILO has been around for over 50 years, owns 93% of the chocolate malt beverage market, and has been a strong patron of nationwide sports programs for decades.

But while the numbers are impressive, they also contribute to MILO’s biggest challenge yet: How exactly can it grow from here? MILO’s share of the chocolate malt beverage market has reached a plateau. The brand has started to see a decline worldwide in key brand metrics on innovation, sports, and consideration as first choice.

The global context also adds to the challenge. BIG FOOD is under pressure to demonstrate that it does not unethically damage health or contributes to rising global obesity by promoting poor nutritional products.

Thus, we set out to help our target take on an issue that mattered to them as parents and to us as a brand. The important issue of energy and nutrition.

The first version of the app and band was developed and piloted in Vietnam as proof of concept. Confident that the technology worked, we piloted with 1,000 parents in the Philippines.

The platform was launched in the annual MILO Summer Sports Clinic. Each kid received a band and his mom was instructed to download the app.

Both of them got to see how the system worked, as energy expenditure got logged into the app during the training. Beyond the training sessions, the platform became a mother-child bonding activity as the kids treated the whole thing as a game where the goal was to reach the recommended energy level.

The experiences and insights from this batch of users were used to improve the band and app, giving MILO momentum to scale the project not just nationally but globally with pilots in Australia and Thailand.