DOVE CHOCOLATE PLEASURE ASMR

TitleDOVE CHOCOLATE PLEASURE ASMR
BrandMARS FOOD CHINA
Product / ServiceDOVE
CategoryA07. Use of Music Technology and/or Innovation
EntrantBBDO/PROXIMITY CHINA Beijing, CHINA
Idea Creation BBDO/PROXIMITY CHINA Beijing, CHINA
Production STINK Shanghai, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
Arthur Tsang BBDO and Proximity China Chief Creative Officer
Howard Mok BBDO and Proximity China Executive Creative Director
Gin Tee BBDO and Proximity China Group Creative Director
Sherie Chua BBDO and Proximity China Business Director
Elaine Lee BBDO and Proximity China Head of Producer

The Campaign

Dove’s audience, Chinese consumers aged between 20 and 40 years old, are all about new experiences. They are hyper-connected and exposed to a great variety of brand contents, all over the digital space. Because their attention is so difficult to capture, we needed to have a breakthrough approach. So instead of just telling consumers about Dove’s “Silky Smooth” pleasure, we decided to make them experience it, directly through brand content. We used a new sub-culture of internet videos: ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), a technique that uses sensory stimulations to trigger sensations. We captured all the best audio-visual sensorial triggers and used them to recreate the feeling of Dove’s silky smooth pleasure in film format. It is the first time ever a brand uses this technique, which enabled us to deliver a whole new experience of the product, even without the product having to be physically present.

Creative Execution

We created the first ASMR high value production with two videos using Dove's main TVC celebrities. In the first one, Li Yi Feng describes the process by which Dove chocolate achieves a silky smooth texture through slow and repetitive grinding of the cocoa beans. In the other one, Angela Baby shows her OCD habits upon eating Dove chocolate combined with hyper-realistic sound design of her opening the crinkly wrapper, the snap of the bar and her teeth biting into the chocolate. These sensory overloads, drawing the viewer into the intimate experience of Dove chocolate, were released on iQiyi and Weibo social networks. In parallel, we partnered with Guokr, a popular science platform that scientifically tested our films to ascertain they really did have the physiological effects that simulate pleasure in viewers. KOLs were invited to take part in the experiment and tweet their experiences to drive buzz around the content.

This innovative way to communicate “silky smoothness” through the ASMR experience had astonishing results for the brand, way above our initial KPIs. The release of the videos immediately sparked a debate between the public and KOLs over the sensations they felt experiencing the content. Dove “silky smoothness” was part of the conversation again with 17,298,899 video views (116% over KPI), 867 million total impressions (189% over KPI) and 2,756,657 total interactions (175% over KPI) in just two weeks. Not only did the work drastically increased the interest for the brand, it also translated into a renewed interest for our products. In September 2015, Dove’s offtake growth increased by 6.4% vs. September 2014. The campaign also significantly improved Dove’s e-commerce performance, with a 515% increase in visitors (to 2,698,744 visitors) and a 55% increase in sales value (from 2,699,425.41 RMB to 4,186,405.72 RMB) over September vs. year ago.

How do you tell a product experience you have told over and over in a new way? Or to be more precise in the case of Dove, how do you make people feel the indescribable pleasure of silky smooth chocolate, without them eating it? Dove ASMR campaign is a case of delivering the product experience in a completely innovative way, through a technique that uses sensory stimulations to trigger sensations, also known as ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). It is the first time that a brand taps into this genre to directly deliver the product experience through its content.

Dove has always been about "silky smooth pleasure", a reference to the product experience of Dove chocolate. However, after years of TVCs using floating pieces of silk in China, interest was fading, especially in a market with no tradition of chocolate eating. We had to find a way to bring the pleasurable experience of eating chocolate directly to consumers who may have forgotten, or may never have eaten chocolate before. But many of Doves own customers could not even describe how eating chocolate made them felt, in any language. Yet they all agreed on a special type of pleasure and feeling of wellbeing after eating it. So we challenged ourselves to create a piece of content that could mimic that indescribable feeling of pleasure. Following scientific testing, these films were delivered to consumers via mobile and online platforms with a message that they are best experienced with personal stereo headphones.

Links

Video URL