ALMACENES ÉXITO: EVERY SOAP INTERRUPTED

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Television

Advertiser: ALMACENES EXITO

Product/Service: SUPERMARKET CHAIN

Agency: PROXIMITY COLOMBIA

Date of First Appearance: Aug 3 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: PROXIMITY COLOMBIA, Bogota, COLOMBIA

Entry URL: http://www.lavidaesunaganancia.com

Creative Vice President: Mario Bertieri (Proximity Colombia)

Creative Director: Sandra Piedrahita (Proximity Colombia)

Account Vice President: Juan Fernando Niño (Proximity Colombia)

President: Vicente Dearteaga (Proximity Colombia)

Art Director: Alba Maldonado (Proximity Colombia)

Copywriter: Lina Tono (Proximity Colombia)

Web Designer: Lina Rodríguez (Proximity Colombia)

Graphic Creative Director: Alejandro Mesa (Proximity Colombia)

Web Creative Director: Phillip Scholz (Proximity Colombia)

Illustration: Hector Moreno (Proximity Colombia)

Media placement: TV Spot - Canal Caracol, RCN, City TV, - 03/08/2009



Results and Effectiveness

230,000 visitors in less than one month

More than 1,600 people used the audio to recreate a video of their own story.

Earned media valued at US$201,690

Thousands of Colombians living abroad in more than 123 countries visited the website, looking forward to reconnecting with their own country.



Creative Execution

To achieve our goal, we had to unite everyone in Colombia with a single feeling. This is how we accomplished something that seemed impossible:

One day in August, while everyone in Colombia was watching soap operas, we turned each television set, and each Colombian network to black, pitch black. Something that had never happened before in the history of Colombian television (or elsewhere), and for two minutes only, we heard the voice of a man inviting viewers to think about the small things again, to find the value of friendship, silence, children. Yes, two entire minutes of no images, but time to reflect about life (like in the old days of radio but on television). At the end, a link www.lavidaesunaganancia.com (lifeisaprofit.com); nameless, brandless. (On the website visitors could create their story using their own pictures and the same voice from the TV spot).



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

In a year hit by the crisis, everybody gets concerned about the economy, everybody speaks about “saving”.

El EXITO, the biggest retail shop in the country, needed to reach and touch the hearts of everyone in Colombia. For a moment, it had to step aside and change from its approach from a retail shop only concerned about selling goods, to a caring one, the one inviting customers to save on everything but the good stuff in life. That one that reminds a country distressed by the crisis the value of simple things in life, like hugging a friend.