Why is this work relevant for Social & Influencer?

To launch its new Root Beer flavour, Mirinda collaborated with 'Milli', one of Thailand's top influencers boasting over 4.1 million followers on TikTok. Her popularity amplified the campaign as she brought her face, style and flavour to a TikTok gamified branded effect where users earned points by moving their heads and sipping from Root Beer glasses. She brought an added dimension to this interactive activity as users co-created, shared and challenged each other to compete for more points.

Background

In the past, Mirinda cemented itself as a leading soft drink brand for the Gen Z population in Thailand. 2020 saw a new opportunity as people consumed more soft drinks. Seizing the opportunity to keep its throne, Mirinda launched a new Root Beer flavour in a hot market, giving itself 2 key objectives: 1. To establish a new image and association for its Root Beer soft drink by removing the stigma as being the taste of the past and to revamp Root Beer into a modern drink 2. To create relevancy and connection between the new Root Beer and its intended audience

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

Mirinda knew they had to tap into Gen Z's passions through a platform that speaks their language, through people they know and respect. We used the language of gaming and created an arcade machine fronted by 'Milli' and other top Thai TikTok influencers as they showed a generation living on TikTok how they can be a part of our virtual experience. Users became a part of a virtual experience that encouraged them to sample the product by slurping up as much Root Beer as possible as bottles popped up all around the screen.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

With a laser focus on the Thai Gen Z population, Mirinda approached its Root Beer launch by speaking to the population through its heroes — Gen Z influencers. Our first choice was Milli, a well loved personality and our very own Mirinda brand ambassador, bringing the campaign to life in her very own way. Her presence created a cascade effect among other influencers to co-create and unleashed the new taste of Root Beer on the larger TikTok community.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

The #IrresistibleChallenge campaign is experienced on TikTok with Milli inviting the audience to audience to give the product a go, drumming up anticipation of the product. As users then rushed to try our gamified branded effect, a piece of interactive AR content that gave users a chance to try the product virtually as they challenged their friends to see who could drink more. This social-first approach created a deep level of engagement and proved to be an effective in reaching out to the Gen Z population.

List the results (30% of vote)

The performance of the #IrresisibleChallenge campaign was phenomenal, exceeding industry benchmarks. It was the first Food & Beverage brand in Thailand to launch this AR effect on TikTok and ranked as one of Thailand’s top TikTok campaigns in 2021, reaching over 19 million users in a span of less than 2 weeks. With over 4.1 million accumulated video views and more than 33,000 videos co-created by users, the campaign outperformed the Thai benchmark for Branded Effect campaigns in 2021 by over 455%. Consequently, the sales of the new Mirinda Root Beer beverage saw a massive spike achieving over 170% of the targeted sales volume within just the frist 3 months from the launch of the campaign.