Why is this work relevant for PR?

People in Korea don’t have a fire extinguisher at home, and even if they do, they store it some-where out of reach. To find a solution, we developed the Firevase – an ordinary flower vase that doubles as a fire extinguisher -, and distributed 100,000 units to homes nationwide. The campaign spread to 32M people on various media platforms. As a result, Korean people’s awareness for the importance of having a fire extinguisher at home increased by 81%, and homes equipped with one rose by 8% nationwide, marking a significant change in behavior.

Background

In South Korea, over 10,000 residential fires occur every year. When a fire breaks out, the ef-fect one single fire extinguisher can have to help kill the fire in its early stage equals to that of a whole fire truck. Despite a law that required all homes to have a fire extinguisher by 2017, 58% still do not have one. And even if people do have one at home, they usually do not take proper care of it. They store it in hard-to-reach places, or forget about it completely. So we wondered, how could we bring the fire extinguisher back within reach of people?

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

The Firevase is an ordinary flower vase that doubles as a fire extinguisher. As part of a home’s décor, the Firevase is always within reach of people. And in case of fire, they can throw it into the flame where it breaks open and releases the extinguishing agent. The potassium carbonate puts out the fire through a rapid cooling reaction suppressing the oxygen, and the efficacy has been Grade A certified by the Korea Fire Institute.

Describe the strategy (30% of vote)

In the last 5 years in Korea, 1,535 people were killed and 9,143 injured through a fire. 58% of homes still do not have a fire extinguisher, and only 22% of people even know how to use one. So with the strategy to equip Koreans that were indifferent to fire safety with fire extinguishers, we created one that was unique so it would increase their desire to have one. Different from the regular powder-type fire extinguisher that people shied away from, the Firevase is a vase that can hold beautiful flowers, but also protects the people around by doubling as a fire extin-guisher. Branded with the Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance logo, the Firevase also acts as an ambient medium strengthening Samsung’s brand presence in the home.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

From September 1st to December 31st, 2018, the Firevase was distributed to 100,000 households in the traditional Korean village, the traditional markets, and other places nationwide that the government designated as fire-prone areas. While the campaign was promoted online, 20,000 Samsung Risk Consultants handed out the Firevases to the people. A video featuring a celebrity putting out a fire helped spread the campaign online as well as in theaters, and a print ad was run in 46 different newspapers and magazines. Furthermore, the Firevase was featured and talked about in news, entertainment and education programs of over 50 different TV networks and news outlets. 100,000 Firevases went to households as fire extinguishers as well as ambient media that became a topic of conversation on social media. Receivers of the Firevase even cre-ated their own content that was shared online and further spread the campaign.

List the results (30% of vote) – must include at least two of the following tiers:

From September 1st to December 31st, 2018, the campaign spread to 32M people on various media platforms. 4.1 million customers visited the Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance website, and brand favorability increased by 83%. 100,000 Firevases were distributed for free to homes nationwide, starting with those in fire-prone areas. As a result of the campaign, 81% of re-spondents confirmed that they were now more aware of the importance of having a fire extin-guisher at home. Furthermore, the number of homes equipped with a fire extinguisher increased by 8% nationwide, marking a significant change in behavior. This means that 4M Korean peo-ple were newly protected from the dangers of fire that could happen in their home. As the posi-tive response kept growing among people and the media, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance de-cided to produce and distribute 200,000 more Firevases, more than doubling the scale of the campaign.