Chat room appeal drives ad campaign

The product's payoff line for the TV campaign is "If it works in here, it'll work out there." The agency's creative team created different executions to show how the product creates that first irresistible impression, which eventually leads to the female flirting back - the creative platform as originally expressed through its radio campaign.

Tough audience

The premise of ChatRoulette is that when a viewer clicks "start," he or she is suddenly staring at another human on screen who is staring (expectantly) back. At that point, the viewer can choose to either chat (via text or audio) or click "next" and instantly call up someone else. In effect, viewers are involved in a voyeuristic, brutal form of Internet 'speed dating' and challenged to come up with a novel, instant way of hooking a partner, or face instant rejection and the indignity of a blank screen.

Team tryouts

The agency's male staff members had great fun testing out various scenarios to see which ones had that winning effect and avoided the devastating instant disconnection. Scenarios that elicited a positive response from women were retained and those that did not were binned. In effect, the consumer decided which scenarios were worth flighting. The most popular creative executions have managed to bring through the key qualities of the fragrance strongly - its irresistibility to women, an intelligent personality, a cheeky character and an international flavour.

Rinie Erasmus from Lenthéric commented, "Launching the fragrance in a chat room environment was a bold move, but we felt that the ad executions perfectly highlighted the brand's appeal to women and ability to make the user feel surprisingly irresistible."

TV recreates chat room feel

The six most popular scenarios were replicated as a television campaign and then shot on webcam to create the authentic look of a chat room. The agency retained the brand's international, contemporary feel while also managing to shoot six commercials on a limited production budget. The commercials were flighted exclusively on e.tv during prime-time movies in May, to reach the widest segment of the target market.