Creative Execution

Cypha wanted to leverage the unique relationship, nostalgia and personal experiences that customers felt for the brand. We believed that by producing a series of social videos featuring ‘grassroots’ staff, we would trigger a strong emotional response from customers, encouraging participation and emphasising the human element beyond the headlines. We encouraged customers to take to social media and show their support for misschu by sharing ‘in-store’ photos and reasons why they ‘need misschu’, accompanied by the hashtag #weneedchu. To prompt customers to participate, we also created in-store posters and polaroids that explained the tuck shop’s situation and encouraged their support.

We saw high levels of engagement during and after the campaign. The story was picked up by over twenty media outlets including Hospitality Magazine, Inside Retail, Smart Company and more. The social videos were viewed 10,618 times on Facebook within a three-week period and recorded 513 unique uses of the hashtag #weneedchu with 99% positive sentiment. More importantly, the locations received a significant increase in foot traffic and were able to avoid liquidation. As a result of this, misschu founder and director (Nahji Chu) was able to purchase back the chain and continues to run the business today.

In November 2014, iconic Vietnamese tuck shop chain, misschu, was forced into voluntary administration. Due to the publicity surrounding the administration and the events leading up to it, the tuck shop owners noticed a massive decrease in foot traffic at their store locations. This resulted in a significant reduction in revenue and placed the business in dire threat of falling into liquidation. In response to this, Cypha developed the #weneedchu campaign, which started on Monday 26 January via misschu’s social channels, encouraging participation through the use of the hashtag #weneedchu. As well as a strong social presence, the campaign was housed on a website (weneedchu.com) which showcased the video series and aggregated the social activity related to the campaign. The campaign ran for four weeks in the aim to increase customer traffic in stores and keep the business trading at an effective level.