Sunlight Floorcare used adorable cartoon sea animals and celebrity partnerships to help consumers better understand why the "inconvenience" of its new handle-less one kilogram product bottle — which was made of 100 percent recycled plastics — was necessary to help protect sea life and the environment at large.
Objective
Each year, Vietnam disposes of about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste, but only 27 percent of that waste is properly recycled. With the percentage of recycled plastics that low, Sunlight Floorcare knew it had to do something. And so, the brand created a new eco-friendly bottle for its products, made from 100 percent recyclable plastic.
However, in its effort to positively affect the environment, Sunlight Floorcare created a separate issue. Consumers were unsatisfied with the new bottle design, particularly with its lack of a handle. To win over the hearts and minds of these consumers and bring them back to its brand, Sunlight Floorcare felt it needed to tell the story of why its bottles were now handle-less. Because most Vietnamese have low interest in the topic of environmental protection, the brand would need a stellar creative idea to carry its message and earn back customer loyalty.
Context
Sunlight Floorcare's one kilogram bottle, which is a core SKU, was re-launched with PET material, which is abundant in Vietnam, versus PP plastic. However, with this material, the brand had to slightly alter the design of the bottle, eliminating the handle. This led to inconvenience for consumers, who greatly preferred the older, handled version of the bottle.
Target Audience
Sustainability has become an increasingly familiar word to people of all ages. As humanity begins to see the drastic consequences of global warming, people have become aware of taking necessary action to protect and preserve the environment. Sustainability has become a baseline expectation for most consumers.
For this campaign, in particular, the target audience was women who were 18 and older, used to buy Sunlight's handled bottle, had a high interest in environmental issues, and were willing to pay more for eco-friendly products.
Creative and Media Strategy
Because Sunlight Floorcare's previous bottle with a handle had become what customers were used to, the new bottle shape immediately triggered concerns about inconvenience. However, in other categories, consumers had demonstrated that they could handle similar bottles without a handle, including toilet cleaner and cooking oil bottles. The brand simply had to take what seemed like an inconvenience with its no handle bottle and turn that into its differentiating and meaningful act of protecting the environment.
To do so, Sunlight Floorcare had to help people to really see the environmental impact they could affect by choosing the brand's new bottle, which was made of 100 percent recycled plastic. The brand landed on a key as the focus of this campaign: It would acknowledge consumer concerns about the inconvenience of the new bottle design and enlist a gang of adorable sea animals to apologize on the brand's behalf.
The campaign would be rolled out in four key phases:
Phase One: Sea Animal Takeover.
To kick off, Sunlight let sea animals that are in danger because of plastics — including a turtle, a seal, and a seagull — take over the social media accounts of three famous Vietnamese celebrities to apologize on behalf of the brand. The influencers included:
Phase Two: The Sea Animals Come Together
In the second phase of this campaign, Sunlight's sea animals came together to say sorry via a 20-second video published on YouTube.
Phase Three: Execute a Social Stunt
To shift away from the apology portion of the activation and begin to inform consumers about the importance of Sunlight's new handle-less bottle, the brand once again turned to its celebrity partners, as well as social media games. On the celebrity pages, each partner explained why the brand changed its bottle design and how important the effort was to create more sustainable products.
Meanwhile, on Facebook, the brand launched a series of mini games which demonstrated the many different postures one could take to carry the new bottles, showing how easy it was to handle them.
Phase Four: Giant Apologies
To make the brand's apologies feel more sincere, a six-meter apology — made entirely of eco-friendly materials — was put on the shore of Crescent Lake, one of the most crowded places in Ho Chi Minh City.
This effort not only raised awareness about the ill effects of plastic pollution, but it also helped Sunlight Floorcare become one of the first brands in Vietnam to use 100 percent recycled plastic in its packaging. Sunlight also landed new product message, playing a part in cleaning up the ocean for future generations.
Campaign results included:
