CASE STUDY: Improving skin condition and selling confidence

Background
Research showed that more than half of teenage girls in China spent a large amount of time online and a similarly significant amount of time worrying about the condition of their skin, which is often oily. Like most teenagers, they struggle with the everyday stress of life and look for ways to feel more confident. Johnson & Johnson (J&J) set out to cater to this need in the knowledge that it had to speak to them in their own comfortable territory - the web.

Aim
The aim of the campaign, which was developed in conjunction with DDB China Group agencies DDB, Tribal DDB and Rapp and OMD, was to encourage teenage girls living in Shanghai to sample and ultimately buy Clean&Clear’s deep action cleanser. To achieve this, J&J needed to strengthen the emotional ties between the product and its target group. The campaign began as a digital initiative and ended in a ‘One Day Challenge’ event in downtown Shanghai.

Execution
Based on the habits of teenage girls online, the campaign was led by social networking and user-generated content components and was designed to culminate in a one-day event that would unite participants. In addition to communicating the product’s ability to tackle oily skin, the campaign sought to emphasise the implications of this in terms of confidence building. Teenagers were invited to sign up with their best friend to take part in the One Day Challenge, which incorporated using Clean&Clear products with fun tasks and challenges such as eating spicy food and dancing around the city of Shanghai. The team with the least oily skin at the end of the day was awarded Rmb5,000 (about US$700). They also won the chance to star in Clean&Clear’s Acne Gel advertorial campaign.

The campaign was endorsed by local celebrities Dingding & Wenxiao Rui, winners of My Show, a contest sponsored by C&C in 2008. Banner ads, viral tvcs, and online teasers were employed to attract people to a designated campaign site. Within four weeks, 60,000 girls had signed up and were chatting excitedly online about the forthcoming contest. Each pair of friends who signed up uploaded their pictures. The website enabled the girls to meet and interact; communication was then magnified when they went onto other sites to spread the word.

Over 420,000 netizens voted for their favourite team, resulting in 10 finalist pairs taking part in the One Day Challenge. Individual blogs were set up for each of the 10 teams, which drew over 60,000 visitors. The finale took place on a stage in one of Shanghai’s trendiest malls (353 Square), attracting the attention of hundreds of passers-by. China’s largest video sharing website, Youku.com, was on hand to film and upload snippets immediately; online broadcasts notched up almost one million views.

Results
There were nearly 700,000 visits to the campaign site during the period and over 2.5 million page views;
More than 32,000 pictures were uploaded;
Sales of the product increased by 37 per cent during the two-month campaign period.

Credits
Brand: Clean & Clear
Title: One Day Challenge
ECD/CD: Michael Dee/ Eva Hou/ Ethan Hsing
Art direction: Nireus Lee/ Omega Guo/ Yepa Huang
Copywriting: Meredin Xu
Account direction: Margaret Wu/ Paul Lau/ Ben Hu/ Lily Mai/ Jojo Guo/ Susan Lu/ Angie Zhou
Media Agency: OMD
Duration: June – July 2009