The holiday's over

With laundry viewed as a utility rather than a luxury, Ariel believed most advertisements and promotional campaigns tended to look very similar with one theme in mind - "we'll get your clothes clean." Ariel wanted to achieve a breakthrough in awareness and differentiation for Ariel in the Turkish marketplace. It wanted to connect with consumers when they were most receptive to its product's benefit and message.

The transition from being on holiday and returning home is a difficult for many people; therefore any respite from the depression inspired by that transition is bound to be a welcomed one. Ariel's communication strategy was to inject some relief into its prospective customers returning from holiday.

A captive audience

They decided to target the audience at the soonest possible moment from returning - at the airport as customers picked up their luggage. By associating the product with 'relief' from post-holiday stress, Ariel created a scenario that made prospective customers more likely to try Ariel. It considered simply handing out Ariel detergent samples, but it felt that tactic was likely to be forgotten quickly.

The campaign involved baskets of clean clothes making their way round the conveyor belt at the airport, with the word 'your vacation clothes are clean and colourful like new with new Ariel?' The baskets were further accompanied by free packs of Ariel detergent. Ariel hoped that if holiday makers saw these baskets while awaiting their luggage, their post-holiday stress would disappear, easing their transition back into the 'real life.'

Results

In total, Ariel exposed 1.5 million post-vacationers to our creative execution in Turkey, with an estimated more than a thousand of them taking packages of Ariel.

At the end of the campaign, Ariel's share grew by 2%.

Execution created a real buzz in social media. Ariel mentions quintupled on Twitter in just one month.