A globally aware Ghanaian consumer is getting sophisticated every passing day. This poses both a challenge and an opportunity for brands to keep up with the Ghanaian consumer and provide the kind of marketing engagement that gives the consumer something to look forward to or feel somewhat challenged.
Closeup, is a household name that is known for its various oral care products. However, when the brand was introducing a new variant, it needed to refresh the brand and also create an environment where it can introduce the product to the young consumer.
This called for a marriage of the typical Public Relations launch and a technology-led consumer launch for the new Closeup Complete Fresh Protection, which is a new variant of Closeup.
The goal was to get young people to attend a consumer launch of a toothpaste brand that has been in existence for decades.
The solution to this problem was to execute an experiential marketing event targeted at the young people the brand wanted to reach with the brand message. The message was centered on the 5 key functionalities of the new variant. The product fights germs, prevents cavities, provides fresh breath, cleans deeply, and makes the teeth strong.
With this briefing, EchoHouse Ghana Limited, the 360 marketing communications company, developed an experiential marketing activity that brought together the consumers and the new product in a tech-infused environment.
The experiential marketing activation by EchoHouse played on bringing the brand into contact with youth culture, in a very relaxed venue to engage with a brand message-focused activity in virtual reality. This was a fully immersive experience that allowed Closeup to use cutting-edge technology to engage consumers at a product launch event.
Youth Culture
If a brand wants to appeal to young people, then it must live in the world young people live in. It must be part of young people’s conversation and it must sometimes be seen to be driving it. Young people are getting through life by forming squads, circles, or tribes, whichever way they call it. The bonds they form in the squads provide a sense of belonging. Thanks to social media, they then get to show off how amazing their tribe is.
This insight from EchoHouse provided an opportunity for Closeup to create an offline engagement where these tribes would go up against each other in a friendly and fun activity. Playing off the competitive spirit, while taking the opportunity to drive home the brand message, EchoHouse created five distinct games to highlight the Closeup Complete Fresh Protection message.
For the brand message of strong teeth, a game of a giant teeth cutout was erected, and playing on the rules of duct football, the squads took shots at the tooth. For the prevents cavities brand message, the squads played a game of zorball against each other with the plastic chamber serving as preventing measure. Also, for the cleans deeply brand message, the squads were challenged to participate in a game of taking a bubble ball bath. While for the fight germs brand message, the squads went head-to-head in a paintball shoot-off.
Venue
Since the beaches reopened following their closure as a COVID-19 safety measure, a lot of young people have not had the opportunity to visit the beach and hang out with their tribe. Beach activities are still slowly picking up. That is why Closeup inviting young people to come to and hang out at the beach was both bold and smart. It, first of all, takes the brand out of its box and allows it to experiment with hosting consumer-focused events. Choosing Laboma Beach also allowed the brand to create a more relaxed atmosphere for the consumers to engage with its brand message.
Infuse Tech – Virtual Reality
Young people live and breathe in the technology world. Every passing day, a lot more aspects of their lives move into the digital world. This meant that if the brand wanted to engage young consumers, then it had to speak to them in a medium that would excite, thrill and secure their attention. With the brand successfully, participating in the youth culture of building squads and tribes, and also successfully getting them to the beach, EchoHouse now had to find a way to reach them with the brand message. Enter, Virtual Reality. This technology, which has been around for some time, is still regarded as a novelty especially when being used for consumer-focused product launches. One of the 5 key benefits of the Closeup Complete Fresh Protection is fresh breath. As a result, the experiential marketing activation saw the creation of a cold VR booth with mist fans that exuded fresh breath and the minty fragrance of the product. In this cold VR booth, the consumers, who had formed their squads got the opportunity to gain an immersive VR experience of playing a game of killing germs with a toothbrush.
With this EchoHouse activation, Closeup brings everything together, the attention of the consumers, enhanced by the youth culture of them competing in squads, and them actually engaging in one of the key brand messages through a virtual reality platform.
Results
Supported by an active digital campaign and the EchoHouse Campus machinery, almost 4K consumers signed up to book their invitations to attend the Closeup Complete Fresh Protection product launch experiential event.
Dubbed #Rumble5, which was a competitive play on the squad of 5 with each representing one of the 5 key brand messages, the digital activation of the experiential provided a strong digital presence for the new product.
On Twitter alone, tweets had 18.9 million potential impacts and 7.3 million potential reach, ensuring that maximum digital awareness has been created for the new product.