Fanta: WE’RE NOT EMBARRASSING – YOU’RE JUST BORING

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Integrated Media

Advertiser: COCA-COLA

Product/Service: FANTA

Date of First Appearance: Mar 1 2010

Entrant Company: CARAT DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY

Director of Strategy: Christian Genkel (CARAT)

Group Head Communication Consulting: Marion Schulz (CARAT)

Communication Consultant: Sophie Tharra (CARAT)

Communication Consultant: Nikolas Pafferath (CARAT)

Media placement: TV Campaign - 1349 Spots - RTL II, Comedy Central, Kabel 1, MTV, Pro7, Sat1, Viva - 1 March 2010

Media placement: Online - Branded App - Schueler VZ - 29 March 2010

Media placement: Print - Contest - 5 Ads - Bravo - 22 April 2010



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

Our client’s task for us in 2010 was to think of a way to make “embarrassing moments” a fun and cool thing for teens. Assuming that teens are self-conscious & easily ashamed we were at loss for an obvious solution. How were we to make teens enjoy the FANTA less serious way of life without making complete fools of ourselves? But intense research taught us the truth: Teens don’t find embarrassment embarrassing! They actually enjoy being embarrassing & sharing their stories with their friends. With this insight we could playfully embrace the campaign idea and activate teens FANTA-Style! Continuing our ever-young communication a presence in all teen media was a must: TV, the most popular magazine and most importantly: online.

All we needed now was an involving idea the teens would love – who’d have thought that everyone of us knew the solution. Ever played truth or dare?



Creative Execution

To avoid slapstick communication we needed a way around plainly displaying embarrassing situations but rather encourage teens to go out of themselves & have fun.

We adopted a well known & beloved teen game with embarrassment guaranteed: Truth or dare.

In the first step we showed our target group our own embarrassing story via TVC. Having established the story, we then brought our campaign to the most popular German teen magazine Bravo with special placements in the “embarrassing stars” editorial. The resulting awareness for FANTA & Embarrassing moments was funnelled onto Germany’s largest student social Network –SchülerVZ. There we met our target with a true innovation: The very first branded app in the network! With this app they can enjoy the thrill of truth or dare and spread their fun stories in the network instantly – thus spreading the FANTA brand message with it– creating a huge viral effect!



Results and Effectiveness

Combined with a clever media mix & the strategic application of Bought – Owned – Earned Media we have just created the most successful teen campaign in years!

We created over 1 billion gross contacts with our embarrassing stories. The social media app was an amazing rocket-like success. In only twelve days the campaign goals were fulfilled: to 156%!! With 391,000 installed apps, over 200,000 active users and 71,000 sent cards we are the most popular branded app. The campaign proved impressively how essential it is to put your target group’s motivation at the core of your idea for success.