We are back with another astonishing advertising campaign, which will be our top #2 of the “2011 top 5 ad campaigns”. If you didn’t check already on previous campaigns, well be sure to go here, there and there.
Number two is Romanian chocolate “ROM” and could perfectly be our number one. It has been a really long, educative, risky and well assumed move from McCann Erickson & MRM Romani for Kandia Dulce. And it’s no surprise if McCann Romania, located in Bucharest, has captured two Gold Lions and the Grand Prix for both Promo and Direct at the 2011 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity for its “American ROM” campaign for Romania’s favorite home-grown chocolate bar, the ROM.
All the story lies there: Rom is the national chocolate wrapped in the national flag since 1964. And guess what McCann Erickson & MRM Romani proposed were : “Let’s get rid of the romanian flag, and switch it with the american one”. Which could be translate as :”Let’s get rid of the strongest symbol of the brand, just to see how upset romanians could get”. That’s the campaign genius: not evolving, not refreshing, just driving consumers nuts with an agressive and provocative campaign with such punchlines as “Patriotism won’t feed you”, “Let’s build America here” and so on.
You can imagine the reaction of the public : a large indignation, covered by all kinds of national medias, since this campaign was affecting the national pride and most sacred symbol. The vistuosity of the the studio is in the second part.
They provided the platforms so the debate could take place, involving the youth in more profound topics as job emigration, social responsability. And they -of course – planned the “back to normal” phase in order to clearly identify the whole campaign as a joke, beeing an opportunity for romanians to ask themselves about their culture and heritage, and how they could participate in its survival, be proud of their country, always on a fair and educated level.
The indicators, as always, of achievement lie in the 300 000 € worth of free media for the chocolate bar, a facebook audience of 20 000 people only 4 days after launching the ad.
That’s why the campaign was a real success, they even actually record a version of romanian anthem with random people. Both the strategy & the background was risky, and it has been a total success, increasing Rom’s impact as a strong brand of 124%!!
Have a look at the whole explaination (in english, not romanian) here:
And as always, don’t hesitate to comment on this campaign below !!