OgilvyOne Athens completed a very successful (ie the needle moved, sales went up, the brand is the talk of a country, etc.) branded entertainment film and transmedia campaign last month for Kraft Foods’ Lacta Chocolate.

Key Stats (for those of us who are prone to ADD or have the XY Chromosome):

Lacta Chocolate Branded Entertainment Film “Love in Action”
• 12% Greek viewer share equivalent to ~13.7 million in the United States.
• Ratings would have placed the show above “American Idol” and along with “Dancing with the Stars.”
• +150,000 hits on the online movie.
• +20,000 Facebook fans.
• The branded film’s theme song became a major hit on the radio (ala “Friends”)
• +210,000 Greeks have visited web site
• Movie attracted so much attention, it was picked up by Mega – the #1 Greek TV station – and shown on Valentine’s day FREE OF CHARGE.

In a nutshell, the OgilvyOne Athens campaign was simple- “a love story competition where the best love story submitted would be turned into a movie.” The transmedia campaign involved crowdsourcing, social media, and branded entertainment to generate an extraordinary amount of buzz. How extraordinary? How about being picked-up and aired on the #1 television network on Valentine’s Day FOR FREE and having your branded theme song #1 on the radio charts? Yes. That successful.

OgilvyOne Athens case study video (yes, they explain how they did step-by-step):

Lacta – Love in Action – case study from OgilvyOne Athens on Vimeo.

Branded Entertainment Keys to Success

1) Involve the audience from the beginning
If you give the audience something to care about, some emotional connection, you will be creating brand ambassadors and positive word of mouth. By creating a competition for “real-life love stories”, OgilvyOne created a positive word of mouth and interest in the campaign. Please notice that they did not say “real-life love story involving Lacta chocolate” – that came later – where the brand and product were organically integrated into the film.

2) Keep the audience involved
OgilvyOne kept the audience engaged by involving them in the continued creation of the film by online voting – from everything from choosing the actors from screen tests to the style of clothing the character was to wear – the audience was involved.

3) Use social media to engage, inform and transform your audience into brand advocates
The campaign used Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and the film blog to actively inform and engage the audience.

The “Love in Action” Facebook page had over +20,000 fans and combined with Twitter was used to inform the audience on film production, upcoming votes and events; the YouTube channel for the film posted additional content including behind-the-scenes, trailers and other video content; the Flickr page posted photos during the entire film creation process and their blog told even more stories.

Great job Kraft Foods and OgilvyOne Athens! Way to move the needle!

Here’s a recent article written by Ad Age on the campaign: http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=142953

The full “Love in Action” Film:

Lacta “Love in Action” – English subtitles from LactaFilms on Vimeo.

Lacta Chocolate Branded Film Website: http://www.loveinaction.gr/english