Mikado: Mikado Stick

Credits & Description:

Client: Mondeléz
Product: Mikado
Entrant: Romance Paris, France
Title: Mikado Stick
Product/Service: Mikado
Entrant Company: Romance Paris, France
Advertising Agency: Romance Paris, France
Media Agency: Carat Coubevoie, France
Production Company: Standard Films Paris, France
Executive Creative Director: Alexandre Hervé (Romance)
Executive Creative Director: Alexander Kalchev (Romance)
Art Director/Copywriter: Alexis Benbehe (Romance)
Art Director/Copywriter: Pierre Mathonat (Romance)
Art Director/Copywriter: Gautier Fage (Romance)
Art Director/Copywriter: Julien Bon (Romance)
Agency Producer: Sophie Mégrous (Romance)
Account Director: Christophe Lichtenstein (Romance)
Account Manager: Marie-elise Archambaud (Romance)
Pr Director: Anne-marie Gibert (Romance)
Communicty Manager: Audrey Depommier (Romance)
Planner: Romain Roux (Romance)
Advertiser Supervisor: Caroline Baume (Mondelez)
Director: Romain Levy (Standard Films)
Sound Production: - (Studio 5)
Brief Explanation
Mikado is one of the top selling chocolate covered biscuit in France.
The problem was that its popularity completely overshadowed Mikado King, the Mikado with twice
as much chocolate. In order to relaunch the product and give its sales a boost, we needed to remind
people how much they loved chocolate. So we did the unthinkable: we launched a mikado without
chocolate, the mikado stick.
Of course, the French started protesting against the new biscuit. And after three days of storm on
social networks, in which we took part by answering all the unhappy consumers, we revealed where
all the chocolate had gone : on the Mikado King.
All the consumers we had fooled praised the brand for the risk it had taken.
Results and Effectiveness
- 2 million € of earned media
- 12 million people reached
- 16000 tweets mentioning the brand
- More than 1 000 responses and 200 live creations produced in real time by our social media team,
greatly increasing the engagement rate of the campaign (7% VS an average standard of 1 to 2% on
Twitter; 13,5 VS 3 to 4% on Facebook)
- 230 articles written about the operation
- Several TV channels and radio stations in France relayed the campaign
- Mikado King's sales increased by 30%
- The campaign also had an effect on the brand's other products: The sales went up by 15%
- Our French Mikado client became Mikado's Brand Manager for Europe
Creative Execution
The responsiveness of the media team took a huge part in the campaign's success by triggering all
the different elements at the right moment.
Day 1 : launch of Mikado Stick on Social networks.
Billboards gave credibility
Day 2 : 3 viral films were launched
The hashtag #mikadostick was trending in France.
Day 3 : counter Hashtag (#AMikadoWithoutChocolateIsAsDumbAs) was launched by one of
France's biggest radio.
Day 4, The reveal : Mikado Stick Boxes with Mikados King Choco inside were sent to major
influencers discovering 'where all the chocolate had gone » and shared the news to all their
followers - the campaign went viral again and stayed up for 3 days.
New billboards and a final film were released.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
Mikado is an iconic product in France. Touching this institution was going to create a huge outrage
among Mikado fans.
We couldn't afford a lot of paid media so we decided to make the announcement on Social Media
and we used billboards displayed at strategic places in Paris and viral films to give credibility to the
new product.
People protesting on social networks were used as a leverage to get the attention of the mass
media. After thousands of people started claiming the chocolate back, making the hashtag
#mikadostick trending in France, Radio stations and TV channel started covering the story, making it
even more viral.
That's how we reached more than 12 million people.