| Title | HUGS ACROSS CHINA |
| Brand | UNILEVER COMFORT |
| Product / Service | FABRIC CONDITIONER |
| Category | A05. Live Experience |
| Entrant | LOWE PROFERO Shanghai, CHINA |
| Entrant Company | LOWE PROFERO Shanghai, CHINA |
| Contributing Company | LOWE PROFERO Shanghai, CHINA |
| Media Agency | PHD Shanghai, CHINA |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Jackie Xu | Lowe Profero China | Managing Director |
| Brian Leong | Lowe Profero Shanghai | Creative Director/Gm |
| Alessandro Grena | Lowe Profero Beijing | Gm |
| Color Li | Lowe Profero Shanghai | Associate Creative Director |
| Candy Tian | Lowe Profero Shanghai | Art Director |
| Sybil Cui | Lowe Profero Shanghai | Senior Copywriter |
| Alex Chan | Lowe Profero Shanghai | Group Account Director |
| Vincent Xie | Lowe Profero Shanghai | Senior Account Manager |
| Leo Wang | Lowe Profero Shanghai | Project Manager |
| Lexy Hu | PHD Shanghai | Digital Planner |
| Abby Wong | PHD Shanghai | Digital Director |
| Doris Li | PHD Shanghai | Digital Manager |
Branded entertainment in China is still in its infancy, and as such tends to be very one-dimensional. From an online standpoint there has been a strong focus on micro-movies, short form sponsored online videos, and of course traditional TVCs. This straight-line approach leaves little space for creativity or interaction, meaning there has been very little opportunity for deep brand engagement across the category.
Our brief was to communicate the benefits of Comfort Fabric Conditioner to people across China. Comfort is very much a product founded on softness of touch and freshness of scent, obviously not attributes easily transmittable across the Internet. So instead, we focused on the brand’s core brand attribute- a focus on a love of family expressing itself naturally through hugs. Hugs are not traditionally used as an expression of love across China. This is something we wanted to change, and at the same time associate this simple gesture of love, with combining fabric conditioner into the everyday laundry process. To do this, we created “Hugs Across China”, an online game aiming to create an online and offline ‘hugging frenzy’ across China. We introduced “Hugs Across China”. Gamifying social relationships into a hugging frenzy. Simply log into social media and pull your friends into your game making every game unique for that user. Your friends, family and a few strangers now became part of the gameplay and your body, the game controller. Using a kinect camera hacked with love, players would hug their friends phygitally. Product benefits like anti-static clothing were work into the gameplay zapping away valuable points from any static attack. The game was adapted to be played on laptop and mobile. From Hangzhou to Hefei, from Beijing to Shanghai, we sent Comfort hugs all across China with stunning results.
To fully immerse consumers in the campaign, we took an online/offline approach combining digital installations outside Supermarkets with deep integration into China's #1 social platform, QQ. The game mechanics were social by nature allowing natural integration with other social platforms, on mobile, tablet and desktop.
The campaign saw 3.3 billion impressions across of digital channels. 3.5 million games played with 61% of players sharing to social media. 170,000 new fans added on social media Coupons with a sales worth of RMB11,000,000 sent out A total 26.5 million hugs shared around the country.