Results and Effectiveness

The show created a real buzz among our target group. It has become staple TV viewing and is a fixture in the top 10 most viewed youth entertainment programs every week. The website is also among the top 10 most visited youth targeted sites in Vietnam, and importantly, has the highest engagement levels with users spending on average 14.5 minutes per visit. The live Gala event attracted 5,000 attendees from our core target demographic to ‘get closer’ with various celebrity guests. More importantly brand metrics are rising, the sales decline has been halted and the brand is back in growth.

Creative Execution

The idea was to create a weekly 30 minute vehicle for Doublemint that could engage and entertain our core target audience while showing more dimensions of the Doublemint personality than could be communicated through a simple TVC – ‘Confidence in social situations’, ‘connections’ and ‘helping to bring people closer together’. Based on a Japanese format that had been running for 15+ years, the concept was to place 7 young Vietnamese people, each with a unique personality and outlook in a bus to go and participate in various activities and see what happens. Romance, friendships and of course a little controversy. Doublemint was to be at the heart of the show and is fully integrated into the concept and activities. It was a first for conservative Vietnam and it also allowed Wrigley to showcase it’s CSR values through the participants engaging in activities that benefitted the local community.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Doublemint was one of the first international brands to enter Vietnam back in 1994 and it turned the market completely on its head. As a result it wasn’t just another brand of gum– it was gum. More recently the category has seen rapid development and innovation and consumer expectations from the category have changed. This had caused Doublemint to lose relevance, particularly among young urbanites; the core heavy gum consumers. So, while awareness was still high, sales and key brand health metrics were in rapid decline. After years as number one Doublemint had faded to a distant second. We needed to reconnect Doublemint with gum users around our core proposition: ‘more confident, closer together’ With TV advertising inflation in Vietnam running at close to 50% and no opportunity to increase budgets we needed an innovative solution to allow continuous weekly presence. It was time for a fresh approach: Love Bus.