Rexona | Run To Your Beat

Insight

In 2013, Rexona launched its new brand philosophy – Do: More – which was a call to action for people to do more of what they love, to do the activities that make them feel the most fulfilled and to live their lives to the fullest. Rexona’s role is to be an enabler, giving people the confidence to do more, because Rexona’s protection won’t let them down.

In line with Rexona’s new Do: More philosophy, the team was inspired to relaunch its annual Rexona Run. There were three challenges the team faced:
1.) How do 1DMG integrate the “Do: More” spirit into the Rexona Run 2013?
2.) How would it differentiate Rexona from all the other running events?
3.) How does it make the Rexona Run 2013 bigger and better than ever before?

Given these questions, the team arrived at the insight that running and music are two things that go together. When people run to the beat of music, they run faster, they go further and they’re more energized to DO: MORE.

So Rexona combined running and music in a multi-sensorial night run, where seasoned and leisure runners alike, party their way to the finish line. This run was called “Run To Your Beat” (RTYB), as different runners are pushed by varying types of music. Some like rock, while others like EDM. Others may even like House or Trance. RTYB was a run which energized all runners, regardless of music taste and background, to DO: MORE running and fun.

Strategy

RTYB had one goal: to become the most talked-about run of 2013. In pursuit of this, 1DMG had to do two things: create massive hype about Rexona throwing the loudest run of the year; and give runners an awesome running experience.

Phase 1:

Create Massive Hype TV Seeding: The RTYB TVC simulated the unique running experience and featured Coach Rio Dela Cruz – the face of Filipino running, and Bianca Gonzales, Rexona’s Do: More Ambassador. The TVC was aired with 2,500 TARPS in eight weeks.

Radio Discussions: The RTYB commercial aired in 19 stations. 120 radio discussions were seeded over 10 of the top radio shows. DJs created anticipation of the unique running experience and encouraged people to join the run.

Digital Excitement: Awareness was driven by banner ads across Facebook, Google and targeted running sites. Excitement was sparked on Twitter and continued with discussions in Facebook and Instagram. Running communities and influencers were targeted to invite people to the run.

Print & OOH Reach: Ads were placed in the top broadsheets and glossies. In OOH, Static, LED, & LCD ads were placed in the five biggest cities in Metro Manila, which yielded over two million unique hits.

Phase 2:

Provide An Awesome Experience The Running Authority: Rexona Coordinated with Runrio, the country’s best run organisder, to ensure that RTYB covered the best routes, and provided top grade safety. Running experts surveyed the area, and secured all essentials.

The Music Authority: Only the best DJs and bands performed at RTYB. These artists energized and motivated runners to run their best runs, while having fun.

The Multi-Sensorial Experience: Aside from the best music, RTYB also had to secure the best visuals in order to supply the experience it promised. As such, neon tunnels, light dancers, and other breath-taking visual elements were installed.

Execution

Fireworks signalled the first gun start at 3:00 AM, after which runners were treated to a plethora of visual and auditory experiences: live musical performances, enigmatic fist-pumping DJ sets, a spectrum of lights; and even the much talked-about 160-feet long neon tunnel. As runners, in their brightly coloured race kits, hit the pavement, performances by only the country’s best music artists accompanied them. Delta Street, Sandwich, The Diegos, DJ Marc Marasigan, Deuce Manila and DJ Nina immersed the runners in their energizing beats until the 10 km mark. Funk Avy and DJ Khai pushed runners with their vitalising sets through to the 21 km mark.

Stilt walkers, neon poi dancers, light dancers, and neon jugglers surprised all runners as they approached each stage. Even the water stations were filled with neon lights. Topping the non-stop music festivities were three of the biggest names in Filipino music: Rico Blanco, Elmo Magalona and DJ Mars Miranda, who greeted all runners at the finish line. Amidst the party at the end of the run, a same-day edit video was shown detailing the dazzling events of the event, further pumping participants up to party—even after having covered their specific running distances. The Rexona Run to Your Beat was the first run in the Philippines to culminate with a rocking neon street party at the finish line.

 

Results

The results of Run To Your Beat exceeded expectations. Run To Your Beat is the biggest Rexona Run to date, with 12,145 (21% above target) registrants. Running kits were sold out three weeks prior to the event; thus making Run To Your Beat the first Rexona Run to be sold out.

On YouTube, the RTYB TVC reached 2.2 million views, leading up to the event– one of the most viewed TV ads online by Unilever Philippines for 2013. On Twitter, it trended non-stop nationwide, and in all the major cities in the Philippines. This went on even after the run ended.

Rexona garnered a total of 16,708 mentions on Twitter and Instagram alone. That’s 5,000 more mentions than that of Masskara 2013, which is one of the biggest festivals in the country. The brand was able to reach 26,857,871 unique individuals online. Total digital impressions peaked at 247,608,027 with a 53% paid to 47% organic split. All KPIs exceeded.

In summary, Run To Your Beat became the loudest and most talked about run in 2013, and Rexona succeeded in its pursuit of energizing and inspiring Filipinos to DO: MORE.

BRAND:

Rexona

CATEGORIES:

FMCG

Toiletries/Cosmetics

REGION:

Philippines

DATE:

August - October 2013

AGENCY:

1 Digital Media Group (1DMG)

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Experiential,Events,Online,Out-of-Home,Print,Radio,TV

KFC Middle East | Arch Rivals

Insight

There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Or is there?

With a following of over 2.1 million Super Fans, KFC Arabia is the region’s largest quick service restaurant brand on social media. It generates conversations across all platforms, mainly among young Arab men. But what happens when negative chatter pops up around the brand?

KFC was about to launch a new campaign endorsed by famed footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. But just prior to the launch, the KFC brand seemed to be experiencing quite a bit of negative online buzz. Although KFC had full control over the assets it owned, there was little it could do elsewhere.

Initiative needed to find a way to deviate all the negative conversation around KFC and protect its investment behind the upcoming Ronaldo campaign.

After analysing sales and delivery trends, the agency noted a dramatic increase of group and family meals whenever a football game was televised. The upcoming ‘Clasico’ match would be among the most viewed and talked about games of the season. If KFC played its cards right, it was something that it could use to its advantage.

The objectives were to:
- Turn negative online social conversation into positive engagements
- Increase overall brand sentiment
- Increase social media engagement on KFC owned platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube 

By doing so, KFC expected to see an uplift in store footfall and deliveries on game day and continue on once the Ronaldo campaign was in effect.

Strategy

There is nothing quite like a major sports rivalry! Think Borg vs. McEnroe, Prost vs. Senna, Tyson vs. Holyfield. A little healthy competition makes for great fodder for any brand. Add a little controversy, and you’ve scored big time. 

Football is the biggest and most popular sport in the region, and KFC Arabia has associated itself with leading football legends since 2010. Three years ago, when KFC signed on Lionel Messi, it saw loads of buzz erupt in the social sphere, making light-hearted fun of KFC’s partnership with the FC Barcelona player. Fans created jokes, memes and other visual materials that quickly went viral throughout the region. 

Engagement levels on KFC Arabia’s Facebook page also showed an all-time high every time KFC posted about a ‘Clasico’ match – or any football related topic really – from fans mocking the other side or cheering on their respective team.

History proves that rivalry is a great platform for fan interaction. And even though KFC had quite a few legends attached to the brand previously, it decided to approach ‘rivalry’ from a brand new perspective. Leveraging the region’s love for football, KFC wanted to be bold, and fuel conversations that build upon the rivalry of Cristiano Ronaldo fans versus Lionel Messi fans.

KFC’s plan was simple: A little audacity and a whole lot of fan interaction.

KFC knew that KFC Arabia’s partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo would trigger tons of instant reactions from his fans and Messi fans alike. And the brand was ready to make its move.

Execution

Blog Talk: Knowing that home deliveries spike on game days, KFC secretly released KFC buckets with Ronaldo’s image during an FC Barcelona match. This would surely cause a stir, especially among Messi fans. As it turned out, FC Barcelona lost quite badly, and fans were taunted with Ronaldo’s face staring up at them. With the help of bloggers, KFC used this incident to launch a social media frenzy!

Social Media Soiree: Once the campaign was released, it was game on. The action became the perfect opportunity for KFC to join the conversation, leveraging content that would now become even more relevant. Sc

Augmented Reality Happenings: The rivalry continued as KFC released an augmented reality mobile app where fans could take a realistic photo of themselves standing next to Ronaldo in their own surroundings. Ronaldo fans used it to brag, with photos together with him in their living rooms, backyards, or offices. While Messi fans mocked them, posing with Ronaldo next to garbage dumps or toilets.

KFC fuelled the fire by seeding exciting football content to stir the Ronaldo vs. Messi fan rivalry and was front and centre creating brand association with every user generated photo, meme or tweet.

ores of fans posted on social media, commenting on the new endorsement, spreading the news like wildfire with posts, jokes, photos and memes. Ronaldo fans mocked Messi for being replaced by Ronaldo, with depictions of Messi working in a KFC kitchen. And Messi fans retaliated with their own jokes and memes.

Results

Online interactions were through the roof! Social media conversation increased by 137% during the campaign and brand sentiment was up 20%.

The Ronaldo photo initiative generated over 65,000 shares in only 45 days, and countless other shares that KFC are unable to track (e.g., Whatsapp, SMS, email, etc.)

BRAND:

KFC

CATEGORY:

Food

REGION:

Middle East

North America

DATE:

June - December 2013

AGENCY:

Initiative

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Digital,Mobile,Online

McDonald's | Fryfutbol McDonald's

Insight

Despite 30 years of major sponsorships, McDonald’s is still not perceived to be an entirely ‘appropriate’ sponsor of the FIFA World Cup. The brand had to find a positioning which stayed true to the brand with its core values of fun and entertainment, but also brought its global sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup 2014, to life.

Unfortunately for McDonald’s, lacking appropriateness during the most cluttered time for brands, also meant simple

association with the event was a challenge. It was spending millions of dollars sponsoring events which people did not know it sponsored, or why it sponsored them. McDonald’s had to find a way to compete with the daily communication from the sponsors who were viewed as being ‘appropriate’, in a credible and fun way.

To do this, McDonald’s had to move away from talking about “Passion” or “The Fans”, and find its own space in sport. The final hurdle was to drive footfall to McDonald’s during the tournament period. To meet this challenge, McDonald’s changed its Fry Boxes Globally, for the first time. It created 12 country designs from famous designers across the world. It was OMD’s challenge to hero these new designs and ensure they would make an impact outside of the restaurant, whilst also making them appealing enough to get people to visit the restaurant.

In short, OMD had to create content which credibly associated McDonald’s with the FIFA World Cup before the tournament and redefine its sports sponsorship positioning… whilst selling products globally.

Strategy

To improve McDonald’s perceived appropriateness it had to become more relevant to sports fans. However, this couldn’t be done with a traditional McDonald’s campaign: research from previous tournaments showed that talking about McDonald’s World Cup association generically did not cut through the clutter. The brand had to associate itself with the most relevant World Cup moments at the most relevant time: ‘authentic in real-time’ became McDonald’s new FIFA strategy.

OMD created FryFutbol. In the lead-up to the tournament McDonald’s would recreate famous World Cup moments and 2014 plays using their famous fries. The strategy needed to be flexible and quick enough to make an impact every day, with scale; however, the relevance of a sporting moment differs by country, so this flexible strategy ensured the agency could create neutral content when necessary, speak to its audience in a locally relevant tone and up-weight media activity based on each country’s view of the moment.

A team was available 24/7 to create high quality content throughout the tournament that was, crucially, exclusively ownable by McDonald’s. Pre-tournament videos were created after extensive research into the three most iconic moments relevant across every European market and it launched heavily with these moments just as excitement for the World Cup reached fever pitch.

McDonald’s also needed to be in people’s News Feed the day after a match as they were catching up on the action and commentary, otherwise the relevance of the content would diminish rapidly. It was this dynamic, fun strategy which would readdress McDonald’s association with the World Cup. 

The content also drove people in-store by allowing them to interact with football content in restaurants – it provided them with something fun to do so that they wouldn’t want to leave and thought of McDonald’s as a great place to be during the World Cup.

Execution

FryFutbol recreated iconic moments in the build up to the World Cup and then recreated the major moments of every day’s play during the World Cup, all in an entertaining Fry World.

In all, McDonald’s used 10,000 fries as supporters and players, 10 hand puppeteers and more than 1,000 Fry props to create the videos. All of this helped to create 30 FryFutbol videos depicting famous and current football moments. All videos were distributed and optimised by market. This meant no support for videos depicting moments which were ‘against’ a given country, whilst up-weighting strong moments.

The strategy was played out to perfection across the World’s Facebook News Feeds, YouTube mastheads, Sports websites and blogs across Europe. Everyone was checking to see the FryFutbol action, before they wanted to see the real-life highlights!

This was the first time Facebook had created content for a partner, the first time the media agency had created content for all Global McDonald’s markets and the first time McDonald’s had activated one consistent campaign with video content, across the world.    

OMD also had to ensure that everything linked back to new Fry Boxes in-store. Therefore, McDonald’s created an augmented reality app which interacted with all 1.2 billion new boxes and allowed users to create trickshots using obstacles in-store e.g. their drinks carton. These were featured in the FryFutbol videos. For the first time, it created a reason for McDonald’s to be associated with the World Cup and created interaction with results in-store.

 

Results

Over 1 billion Fry Boxes sold! This is the most sold in a comparable period, ever.

Appropriateness scores had the greatest change between pre and during the campaign (+5%), with expected post tournament scores higher than any other major sponsorship for McDonald’s (+10%). 

What started as a European campaign in 39 countries, was taken in every major continent and all major McDonald’s markets. It was the campaign of ‘firsts’, and the results reflected the huge impact that this campaign had on the McDonald’s brand globally;
• Leading up to the World Cup, McDonald’s had the highest ranked app in a number of markets globally - the first time it had ever done this across more than one country at any given time.
• FryFutbol videos were the most viewed single piece of content for McDonald’s ever (50m+ views)
• Most ‘Liked’ campaign content in McDonald’s history (+5m Likes).

BRAND:

McDonald's

CATEGORY:

Food

REGION:

Europe

DATE:

May - May 2013

AGENCY:

OMD

MEDIA OWNER:

Facebook

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Experiential,Events,Integrated,Online,Sponsorship