The Campaign

Electrolux launched an incredibly quiet vacuum cleaner 'ergothree' in 2012, but it did not sell well because people firmly believed vacuum cleaners are loud. Our challenge in this re-launch campaign was to disrupt that conventional belief of consumers by creating an impactful, sharable news leveraging a truly innovative product demonstration. So we created the first-ever cleaner, ‘ergothree play! model,’ that turns the vacuuming noise into music; it detects dusts with the optical sensor and plays music as it sucks up dust.Then we created and shared the demo video of the ‘play! model’ and held a press event to enhance it. As the result, it generated online buzz and 1,000,000+ USD worth of free publicity, which lead to change the consumer mindset and boosted the sales of ergothree.

The Brief

The objective was to disrupt the conventional belief of consumers that vacuum cleaners are loud which hampered the credibility of ergothree and to boost its reputation and sales among Japanese consumers.

Results

-Generated online buzz and 1,000,000+ USD worth of free publicity -Website traffic was doubled on YOY basis -Convinced the audience of the quietness of ergothree -Monthly sales of ergothree increased by 160% compared to pre-campaign period

Execution

First we customized ergothree to create the first-ever vacuum cleaner, 'ergothree play! model,' that turns the vacuuming noise into a beautiful music. Mounted with an optical sensor inside the head nozzle, it detects dust particles and plays MIDI sequence as it rhythmically sucks up dust. Then we created and shared a music video where four women play ensemble music using the ‘play! model.’ At the same time we held a PR event to launch the music video, where we had famous TV celebrities try the ‘play! model’ to enhance the PR exposure online and offline. Everything went well as planned and we got a huge success.

The Situation

The product, ergothree, is a vacuum cleaner newly launched in 2012 from Electrolux Japan, that combined the incredible quietness and the first-class suction power at a very high level. However it did not sell well in its 1st year, because people firmly believed powerful vacuum cleaners should be loud and Electrolux brand was not well-known in Japan to convince them. This re-launch campaign was very much challenging because we had to tackle that deep-rooted conventional belief of consumers, whereas there was nothing new at all with the product itself.

The Strategy

Regarding the 1st year communication, only claiming “I’m a quiet vacuum cleaner” in TV commercial did not convince the audience. So we decided to leverage PR and viral communication as it should be more effective in terms of credibility, in such a situation where Electrolux brand is not well-known. Our strategy was to create news, even though there was nothing new with the product itself, by developing a truly innovative product demonstration that shows off the unparalleled quietness of ergothree.