The Campaign

Brands with stronger brand love have an easier time engaging people with branded content because they are well integrated into their daily lives, so it is mostly seen as natural and relevant to them. However, for brands with lower affinity, it is more challenging to give branded content because it is always seen as another form of sales pitch and consumers have yet to develop an intimate relationship with them. In terms of brand interaction online, studies show that women are more likely to interact with branded content than men. This is not surprising given that they comprise majority of users and active users of social media via computers and mobile (smartphones or tablets).

Results

Though labeled as the vainest in Asia, Filipino men showed little attention to brands like Clear Men. Most of them were still using women’s shampoo because for them, all shampoos were the same. This was the challenge for CLEAR MEN: to gain affinity among Filipino men while differentiating itself from its women’s shampoo competitors by tapping into two things they are passionate about: sports and competition. To put Clear back in the game, we set out to own a space that is already the fastest growing team sport and is gaining patriotism from Filipino men – football. With the insight that men are more competitive and vocal online, we launched the Clear Dream Match led by the country’s biggest football stars. We transformed fans into fanatics by allowing them to co-create their dream match on digital. This created online hype leading up to the actual match on-ground. We led the fans online, where we engaged them through a Facebook and mobile application where they could choose a team to support—Team Phil or Team James. They voted from a pool of 50 players to form the final draft pool and scored online points for themselves and their chosen team through playing the digital football games and by tweeting for their team. Each fan interaction converted to digital points for their teams, and the team with higher points earned a higher advantage for the match. On ground, Clear Dream Match fanatics gathered to witness the country’s top football players, along with football legends, Fabio Cannavaro and Dennis Wise. The campaign allowed the brand to provide a seamless experience with real time updates on both ATL and digital. This allowed everyone to be part of the Dream Match experience whether or not they’re actually present on the stands.

To get Filipino men’s attention, Clear used the insight that true sports fans are vocal about their favorite players and teams, especially online where they argue with other fans. Through digital, we invited fans to co-create their dream football match and be part of the rivalry between two of the country’s biggest football stars, Phil and James Younghusband. We pitted them against each other from the start until the actual match and got fans involved every step of the way. To intensify engagement, we invited football legends, Fabio Cannavaro and Dennis Wise, to join in the rivalry as well.

The Clear Dream Match was a big success. Sales grew by 26% during the entire 5-month campaign period. Clear brand equity among males reached its highest ever, growing by 160 points, and the list goes on: - 37,260 votes for football players were cast online - 6,000+ fans played branded digital football games 87,000 times for a total of 488 gaming hours. - 40 world-class footballers in 1 stadium including 1 World Cup Champion and 1 UEFA Cup Champion - Tickets were all sold out or redeemed online 4 days before the match - The mobile app had a good 1,026 downloads in just 4 weeks - 1.5 Million Euros Earned Media Values with features from top news and sports channels - 160 Earned Media Pick-ups on Print and Digital for PHP 15M in Earned PR Media - Team James and Dennis Wise trended worldwide on Twitter and trended in the Philippines for almost 12 hours - #ClearDreamMatch trended No. 1 for over 12 hours with 40,000+ mentions on Twitter - 1 Billion+ Digital Impressions - The 2-hour match was aired on National Free TV, getting the highest TV ratings from any football match aired in the Philippines in 2013.