The Brief

Unilever’s brands are well established in urban Vietnam - rural Vietnam, however is a different story. The challenge - to help Unilever’s brands connect to these rural communities, when many didn’t even know how to use products like soap or toothpaste – with complexity and scale of investment required to succeed seen as prohibitive. The strategy? Create experiences to capture hearts and minds, building conversations within each community. With this in mind, Unilever’s Home Circus came to life, launching the first multi-brand rural engagement to focus on market development, education and behavioral change; arresting Unilever’s decline in key brand attributes.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

4 Delivery trucks were converted into traveling stages - capable of delivering multiple shows per day. Each show had five acts – each representing a different Unilever brand. For Surf, we created a comedy with half-wife/half-husband debating whether better to save money or smell great. Surf, of course, does both. For Hazeline, a song and dance performance based on local folklore, integrated/encouraged softer, smoother skin. Lifebouy used rap to educate about germs; whilst an experiential audience participation event promoted soft/silky hair for Sunsilk; Finally a shadow puppet-show for PS toothpaste encouraged twice a day brushing to prevent tooth decay.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

After visiting wet markets, community centers, and delivering four to five shows daily for a month the results were unprecedented. Brand awareness and purchase intent reported an impressive 90% increase in confidence levels, with a 90% Likeability rating. Attendees spent an average of 40mins engaging with each show, with over 80% of attendees recalled the brand messages afterwards. Unilever’s Home Circus connected with over 26,800 people in rural areas - creating a lasting customer base that will share products and pass on the knowledge and experience to their families, neighbors, and community. Giving everyone reason to truly love the circus.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Rural communities are more open to marketing that touches them directly, such as personal experience or live demonstrations of the brand in action. The ideas were developed to distinctly highlight not only the product use, but also the brand attributes in a truly educational and entertaining manner. For example Unilever's Lifebuoy soap used a 'germ glow box' as part of a demo kit to highlight the importance of washing hands in an anti-bacterial soap (the brand's central proposition). The glow within the box helped highlight the germs in hands and make consumers aware that 'visual clean was not safe clean'.