Results and Effectiveness

The comment box reached its peak by the time the movie aired on 16th of August, 9pm, with 111.487 hits and entries. Many of them from Indonesia, even Singapore and as far away as Holland, Norway, Germany, Japan, Canada, and USA. Most of them feel disappointed that the "movie" was only two minutes long and they are demanding it to be made into a feature length movie. After a month, the website generated 375.844 hits and comments. The 16 Augustus campaign has generated much interest and the dialogs still continues in personal blogs and YouTube uploads. The youth of Indonesia has awakened.

Creative Execution

An integrated campaign was created specifically for the youth. To illustrate the elaborate struggle of the youth the day before independence was proclaimed, a two minute movie trailer format was produced. The movie was titled "16 Agustus". And will only be aired once, on 16th of August at 9pm on 5 tv stations, simultaneously. One week prior to 16th of August, 2 versions of 15 trailers aired on TV, a dedicated website and also in movie theatres in the trailers slot. Print ads also ran in newspapers and youth magazines. These ads were designed as fold-out movie poster inserts. The poster was also pasted on major movie theatre lobbies. A website address was also included on all of these materials. www.16agustus.com The website was launched 8 days before D-day. It started gathering comments from excited youth about the prospect that Sampoerna is making a historical movie that acknowledge the role of the youth in their national independence.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

17th of August is the day Indonesians celebrate their independence. Corporate advertising during these periods are typically celebratory, sending the same message with a common execution. In 2008 however, Sampoerna decided to pay tribute to the youth of Indonesia. Highlighting the fact that in every major moment in Indonesian history, there was always a youth movement that made it happen which is often overlooked. The historical ‘kidnapping’ of Soekarno-Hatta (the founding fathers) by a group of youth on the day before 17th of August, is the center of the story, which usually presented no more than a paragraph in history textbooks. We decided to celebrate the 16th of August instead.