Why is this work relevant for Media?

To have people experience just how tough it is to remove a stubborn dried stain, we hijacked broadcast screens and stained them. During primetime. This was a completely new visual experience to launch a product reformulation, one proving that only the brand was capable enough to remove said stain.

Background

Surf Excel was suffering: two years of constant negative decline had meant that the closest competitor had wiped out the market share gap by a worrying 50%. A major cause of this was the decreasing faith in consumer's mind of the brand's ability to work on tougher stains. In order to turn this around, Surf Excel reformulated their product with a new ingredient. But our job was much tougher: to reverse the negative perception of the brand's efficacy. The brief objectives were to create a campaign that would: 1. Improve sales trends for Surf Excel 2. Step up turnover growth for Surf Excel 3. Increase Market value share vs. Key competitor in the campaign period 4. Improve Brand Power scores 5. Hold or Increase Penetration

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

Our research had indicated that consumer confidence in the brand's ability to remove tougher stains had waned. This resulted in the insight of showing exactly how stubborn tough stains can be, which then led to the big idea: Hijack the screen itself by staining it. All across mass media, large ugly dried stains started appearing on the screen within the programming itself, with the cast of the programme playing along in surprise at the stain, breaking character or even disrupting news. After a while, the stain was wiped out by a mini tornado of Surf Excel's special formulation.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

To reach the largest possible audience, and to create intrigue and organic buzz, Surf Excel deployed the stunt on an initial 15 broadcast channels, including the Big 5 channels in Pakistani TV landscape in which the stain appeared on-screen. Using special negotiations, a frequency of 4 stains per hour (15sec each) was decided upon. This activity was amplified by News & Morning Show integrations where the hosts talked about the strange recurring stains on TV reaching out 33,000,000+ individuals across the country. A large part of the media planning involved choosing the right programming, ensuring a good spread between news and purely entertainment channels. This also involved training the cast of the shows to often break character and engage with the stain on live broadcast.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Across 14 leading broadcast channels and popular social media touchpoints, Pakistanis watching everything from entertainment to news, found a smattering of dried stains obscuring their screens. From mud to paint to even ketchup. Bewildered, people took to social media (after attempting to wipe their screens) trying to figure out why these stains were popping up on screens everywhere and more importantly, who put them there. We revealed our new formulation in the form of a tornado wiping out the stubborn stain which even the help in the studio failed at. The hashtag #WhatTheDaagh (What The Stain) became the top trending topic of the day on Twitter and Instagram, with people posting pictures of the different stains caught on camera.

List the results (30% of vote)

The Stained Screen became the No.2 trending topic on Twitter, taking over national conversation. The stunt helped the brand's fortunes turn completely around: Surf Excel is now experiencing growth for the first time in 8 quarters, ending a two-year trend of negative decline. This turnover growth U-turned from negative to positive within a month after the stunt. The market share gap vs competitor has jumped to its highest ever. Brand penetration has improved by 40+ bps for the first time, setting a new benchmark for the industry. The stunt drove the highest volume for the brand in nine months. With this simple hijack, we reached over 35 million people on TV, and garnered over 42 million impressions online. Organic spread resulted in more than 10,000 comments on Twitter alone.