The Campaign

Valentine’s Day had become the embodiment of romantic clichés and it provided us with a tactical advantage to disrupt not only our category, but the way people viewed closeness. What inspired us was the fact that in-spite of insurmountable pressure, there are people in our markets who follow their instincts and their hearts. Not because it was controversial or a rebellious statement - but because “people don't choose who they’re attracted to”. We knew we wouldn’t be able to change laws and legislations of countries, but we could help influence opinions and spark a movement towards closeness, of all kinds. Our big guiding idea therefore became “Courage is contagious” – that the acts of a few can be catalyst for change in many, and can inspire others to make their own move. One small spark can start a fire. And that's exactly what we wanted to do.

Creative Execution

We launched our campaign by releasing a hero video featuring, for the first time in some markets, a myriad of couples getting closer finally culminating in a kiss. The video also featured mixed-race and same-sex couples, a bold statement from the brand, and a first for our markets. We drove mass viewership by upweighting paid media in the first 3 weeks - key to driving maximum sharing and visibility for online video across platforms (Source: Unruly Networks Science of Sharing) We then asked viewers to share 6 word stories of how they got close to people they were attracted to, which could be shared on social networks and on our campaign website. We roped in popular YouTubers in our markets to help drive further traction for our message of closeness, thereby tapping into a large audience of youth consumers looking for inspiration, and also permission, to make their moves.

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

Media Highlights: 1. We owned Valentines Day in our respective markets with share of voice reaching as high as 89.9% (Source: Unruly Analytics) in the oral care category 2. We drove 21 million views in three weeks across Asia, and an additional 3 million views in Africa 3. We had strong engagement rates with a completion rate of 40% 4. Ad recall was well over established benchmarks (Source: Brand Lift Survey) 5. Despite the “taboo nature” of the subject, we received over 12,000 Asian submissions and 24,000 African submissions of courageous moves, including those of viewers who had broken societal norms to get closer Brand Highlights: 1. Brand Equity scores showed a growth of 3% points in India and an astonishing 16% points in Indonesia compared to the previous year (India and Indonesia are tracked markets) 2. Sales growth of 10% on average in our markets in this period

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

This entry shows how even an extremely low-involvement category like oral-care, can transcend itself, by activating consumers around a cultural event and an issue of significance. By activating consumers around the idea of closeness, and promoting attraction of all kinds, Closeup was able to drive brand equity and sales in Q1 of 2016. It shows us that brands don’t just exist in consumer’s minds as mere products – rather, they are very much part of the fabric of day-to-day life, and need to stand for important matters. In doing so, they can drive significant levels of engagement and brand love

Our strategy was to build fame for our message of closeness, and also fame for the brand. The principle of “Social Proof” tells us that people are likely to engage with an idea if it's trending in society – which was important as our idea needed people to gravitate towards it, for it to succeed. To build fame, we would need to gain a disproportionately high Share of Voice with our audience by: 1. Owning Valentines Day in media, with a burst of high spends around the key touchpoint for the youth – Social Video. 2. Making it inclusive rather than exclusive, by having a very simple activation mechanic to encourage as much participation as possible 3. Using influencers in addition to paid media to gain traction for our message This would encourage people to share their stories of getting close, sparking others to do the same, and so on.