Insight
Studies show that only 1 in 10 Filipino men use face care products because they don’t find it necessary. They let the women in their lives buy them, or end up using whatever is already available at home – which are usually brands for women.
For years, this challenge plagued brands like Vaseline Men, which are specifically designed for men’s skin care needs. So in 2014, Vaseline Men faced this challenge head-on and was determined to catalyse a realisation in men about the brand’s relevance in their current lives. The brand took a deeper look into the psyche of today’s young Filipino men, which helped identify their greatest motivation and used it as leverage for the campaign.
Strategy
Movent found as the target market’s greatest motivation was actually simple, they wanted to land a good job. However, job-hunting in the Philippines is a highly competitive space. Getting ahead is not as easy as ensuring you have good credentials. This led to the insight that in a competitive market, when credentials are all the same, having a well-groomed look can actually be one’s advantage.
To add to the opportunities, the young adults of today are highly engaged online, densely present in social media and micro-blogging sites that were a go-to for their entertainment and interests. It was also undoubtedly a popular source of important information, including their immediate concern – getting hired.
Execution
Vaseline Men conducted a social experiment through the online video “What gets you hired?”. By setting up an interview room that had strategically hidden cameras through one-way mirrors that appeared to be meeting room glass boards, the agency captured every bit of interaction for the intended social experiment.
It featured one guy with the same credentials, sporting two different looks. He went on interviews with three unknowing hiring managers, asking standard and identical questions all throughout the interview. Extra interviewees were placed in between the two polar physical characters to ensure that the hiring managers are unlikely to suspect that two of their interviewees are the same person. Both resumes of the two candidates were equal in academic merits and just differed in one obvious detail—their grooming. Upon deliberation, all three inevitably chose the candidate with the well-groomed look because according to them, he left a more lasting impression.
Vaseline Men then encouraged people to share their opinions on the social experiment by using the hashtag #PogiMatters (a well-groomed look matters) across Facebook, Twitter and via a Rappler.com poll to educate fresh graduates that when you’re neck and neck with competition, what sets you apart is representation.
Results
The video elicited reactions and stirred passionate discussions amongst these typically passive Filipino men. They started posting their opinions about it on their blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages. The reaction was massive that the topic was picked up by primetime and morning TV shows.
Views for the YouTube video hit 1,200,000 in just three weeks and the brand’s Facebook page got an all-time high engagement rate of 71%. The campaign got over 57,000,000 impressions on Twitter with its main handle #PogiMatters, signifying that conversations were gaining healthy traction in the media and that the target market was engaging it.
The campaign effectively generated a total of $499,540 worth of earned media, helping it achieve 504% ROI.
All these efforts have led to a significant increase in sales for the brand by a whopping 36%.
View the full case study here: http://youtu.be/uouIKo8SXrw.