Why is this work relevant for Branded Content & Entertainment?

The Germ Squad Heroes is an edutainment platform aimed at reaching parents with the end goal of educating kids. It required a comprehensive understanding of both to create meaningful experiences in executions with width and depth. An online film with a compelling and captivating story was able to catch the attention of parents who found Vim’s idea valuable for their children’s, followed up by edutainment brand experiences which enabled parents and children to spend quality and meaningful time together, having fun while learning toilet hygiene habits that kids can do to keep school toilets clean and maintain the community protected.

Background

Over the past 10 years, Vim has committed to fight against poor sanitation by building and modernizing over 1.000 school toilets in Vietnam. With purpose integrated into mass communications, Vim gained society’s attention on the unhygienic school toilets issue. In this period, Vietnam progressed drastically and together with Vim and local authorities efforts, 70% of schools now have hygienic and modern toilet facilities. Yet, they are still being mentioned with grief and concern. Vim set to discover why. Aided by social media listening on public conversations of parents about their children’s schools and hygiene concerns, Vim discovered the problem in these toilets wasn't the facility, but the usage and maintenance, hence the need for education. It became the objective of Vim to strengthen its brand purpose by fighting a different kind of enemy in the war against poor sanitation: the lack of education around good hygiene habits in the toilette.

Describe the creative idea

Knowing that kids need relatable stories, events and characters to understand concepts and that parents feels proud of seeing their kids as change makers, Vim introduced “The Germ Squad Heroes”, a group of 3 characters with kids as heroes having superpowers to fight against germs. The idea shows to kids that they have the power to raise their toilet hygiene habits to the standards of the action heroes they idolize from seeing on movies and cartoons by learning their superpowers, which are three important and simple hygiene habits that all kids can do to maintain the school toilet clean and beautiful: 1 - Throw the trash in the bin; 2 - Flush after using the bowl and 3 - Wash your hands with soap thoroughly before leaving the toilet.

Describe the strategy

The core target audience for Vim in this campaign are parents of primary school students, they're millennial and gen-x mothers who have grown up in difficult times with unhygienic toilets but have been an active participant in the rapid country development as well. They know that this is a war, and they feel proud in being part of the change, especially if that brings direct benefits for their children’s and community. Yet, the end game was for the educational message to impact kids, reason why we carefully thought of an approach with content and branded experiences that could reach and engage parents, while being entertaining and educational for their kids as well, enabling meaningful time together. We translated the 3 hygiene habits into kid-speak language which makes the idea of practicing toilet hygiene habits easy to follow, resulting in higher acknowledgement and memorability on these newly learnt habits.

Describe the execution

The film launched on Youtube, the 2nd second-most accessed site in Vietnam, for a wide reach, the story includes an uplifting song and dance where 3 habits are highlighted, becoming the hook of the following brand experiences. Vim partnered with the edutainment toolbox subscription service “Hop Hao Cuc” to create a Vim’s special edition which was sold and gifted to Influencers. It came with practical yet entertaining items including a comic book and a board game. It encouraged parents to spend quality time with their kids, helping them to form and improve their hygiene habits. A social media challenge gave voice to parents who want to be change makers, together with their children they shared a video covering the dance of the 3 hygiene habits featured in the film. Vim triggered conversations in the most popular news outlets by featuring real stories that sparked talk-ability.

Describe the outcome

In one month, the film gained +9million views, 1.000 edutainment boxes were sold/gifted and +10.7k buzz (posts/shares/comments) was captured by social media listening on campaign keywords (+100% vs latest campaign/Q1/2020), with positive sentiment achieving 0.99 (Max=1). 60% of the buzz consisted of participations in social challenge. The authenticity of PR themes proved to be relevant as the articles gained 150% more views than committed. In a research with kids, Vim evaluated the campaign potential in driving kids' awareness of hygiene habits and potential behavioral changes when exposed to it. Amazingly, kids were able to recall the whole story spontaneously, including the hygiene habits and recognized Vim via “killing germs and heroes” attributes. In the same period of the campaign (Q4/2020), Vim sales uplifted 24% (vs Q3/2020) with a penetration gain of 3.99% (MAT Nov/2020) showing that Vim grew stronger and have more people joining the unstoppable war against poor sanitation.