IAKI has developed a project of unconventional communication for the summer concerts circuits and the Pink Night, sparking off happiness in girls from all over Italy. A large number of contacts and opportunities to talk about the product, sampling and distribution of content related to Bluetooth concerts, a true operation of experiential marketing by IAKI.
Nicoletta Caluzzi, president of IAKI, tells us about it.
What were Nivea’s demandings?
We were asked to design an innovative spreading activity for Happy Time, a moisturizer cream launched also by a TV commercial and a competition on Deejay Radio. It is an energizing cream that will appeal to a female target, between 18 and 25 years, with a positioning fresh and younger than the other Nivea products.
Why have proposed a guerrilla activity with proximity marketing?
For the thrill of the unexpected! The conventional sampling activities are becoming ineffective, so we decided to associate the spreading of Happy Time to some real moments. We selected our circuit of concerts and summer events, where we were sure to find a suitable target, then we studied the activity that would involve them.
What is the risk of an unconventional activity like this?
When you deploy contents and product samples for free, the risk is to put the product into the wrong hands. Even if we like to catch everyone’s attention, to Nivea was important that the product arrived at the right target. By choosing the circuit of concerts and the Pink Night, we were besieged, but only by the right people: girls aged 18 to 25 years, eager to try the cream they had seen on TV and they had heard of on Deejay Radio.
You have associated product samples with the distribution of content via Bluetooth: an mp3 of the spot as a ringtone and a wallpaper for mobile phone. How were this content received?
They were fundamental: we have built a channel of contact between the people who have agreed mp3 and backgrounds and the brand. Even those who did not want the Bluetooth contents have, however, had a different perception of our business. By spreading elements related to the event where we were, as the screensaver theme, we have become an integral part of the context, rather than intruders.
How have you managed the contact? What kind of conversations have you had?
We have been bombarded by requests for product information: most of the people we spoke to had heard of Happy Time and wanted to know more. It was hard to answer them all, but these questions have let us know that we had an open important channel of communication between these people and Nivea.
Would you change anything in the managing of the event or of the evenings?
Maybe next time we will choose less beautiful uniforms. Nivea trolleys and hats were liked so much that people wanted to buy them. But it’s part of the game: in a guerrilla, among the people, there is always something unpredictable. You need to have nerves of steel and the right answer. For example, during the Pink Night at least fifty hairy and a bit ‘drunk boys wanted Happy Time at all costs. We told them to come back after they had waxed!