#Hashtag Asia Awards 2021 highlight: Closeup's multi-pronged social bet scores smiles among younger gen

Despite strong competitors in a highly saturated environment, the oral care market in the Philippines had an unfulfilled gap. There was a growing number of consumers looking for a toothpaste that provided more than just the basic function of cleanliness. With the launch of a new premium toothpaste, All Around Fresh, Closeup wanted to drive awareness and encourage the purchase of All Around Fresh. Together with Mindshare Philippines, an online campaign was launched to highlight the all-in benefits of the product. The campaign was so impressive in reaching out to its mobile-ready audience that the team won the bronze award for Best Social Media Channel Campaign: Twitter at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Hashtag Asia 2021 Awards.

Challenge

Closeup faced strong competitors such as Colgate which dominated two-thirds of the market share. Although Closeup already had very strong credentials as a toothpaste maker, the team needed to not only establish a new product (All Around Fresh) which gives all-round protection, but also make consumers switch to this new product by gaining their trust. 

Closeup needed to convince its target market of men and women above 18 years old that All Around Fresh could provide the comprehensive oral care that they were looking for.

Solution

Closeup wanted to communicate the key message that All Around Fresh provided comprehensive oral care in one simple streamlined solution to three audience segments:

1. Users of competitor products who are seeking more benefits

2. Current Closeup users who want a levelled-up product

3. Individuals who are looking to fulfil more comprehensive oral care needs

To do so, Closeup decided to use Twitter as the primary social media platform for its campaign as it is the main conversational platform for Millennials and Gen Z. Closeup understood that 56% of its target audience used Twitter at least once a day and was an essential platform for discussion of new topics. 

Execution

With Closeup’s core audience on Twitter and with 40% of them having purchased oral care products monthly, Twitter was the most ideal platform for Closeup to drive awareness and generate conversation surrounding the launch of All Around Fresh.

The campaign was powered with Twitter branded features such as branded emojis and bespoke Twitter APIs, such as dayparting and TV Sync, which enabled Closeup to implement its audience-focused media strategies.

To kick off the launch, Closeup used Twitter’s takeover products (Trend Takeover and Timeline Takeover) for a 24-hour takeover of Twitter’s top trend list and priority access to people’s first impression of the day. This achieved high visibility and drove mass awareness for the launch of All Around Fresh. Closeup also created a custom branded emoji, which appeared every time a user tweeted the campaign’s branded hashtag, #AllAroundFresh. This further supercharged conversations about Closeup and its endorsers, throughout the five-month campaign.

By partnering with an API partner, Closeup executed two first in-market novel media executions on Twitter - dayparting and TV syncing. Firstly, dayparting enabled Closeup to display specific Twitter ads on the users’ timeline based on the time of the day. It delivered the promise of all around freshness throughout the day. For example, the campaign displayed a waking up tweet in the morning, a lunch-related tweet in the afternoon, and a pre-sleep routine tweet at night. Secondly, TV Sync gave the brand the opportunity to synchronise the display of ads on Twitter with specific commercial breaks or shows on TV. This bridged the gap between online and offline by showing how Closeup can connect with audiences using their mobile and television screens, holding a captive audience on both fronts. All ads led to Closeup’s eCommerce website.

Results

The multi-pronged campaign was a success and managed to garner a staggering 52 million impressions across its run on Twitter. The campaign also won in the #BestofTweets Philippines Awards for mastering Twitter's creative canvas from innovative media execution to putting the brand at the spotlight with expert use of branded emoji and API partners to reach a mobile-ready audience. More importantly, Closeup’s All Around Fresh experienced a 31% increase in sales, proving that the campaign achieved its goal of encouraging purchase of the new product.