ROM authentic campaign- a nice and successful romanian teasing

As you may know, Romania doesn't have many brands to be proud of. Not because we don't have some quality products but mostly because our companies didn't have the money necessary to invest in branding or in a pattern. Maybe you heard about Dacia- a good and very cheap car but with basic options, but, that's all. We also have a famous chocolate brand- ROM. Being an old brand, Rom chocolate is well known by all romanians but because it reminds them about communism and those hard times, Rom chocolate  got an old air and started to be seen as an uncool product mostly by the young generation. ROM (as in ROMania) was a traditional chocolate bar since 1964,  bearing the Romanian flag on it. Its heritage and nationalistic brand associations were a disadvantage in face of strong competition from cool brands like Snickers and Mars, more relevant to a young target driven reluctant to patriotic feelings by the economical downturn, bad politics and lack of opportunities.
Even if this chocolate has a great taste and the tradition and the recipe was kept and follow during this years, romanians seemed to dislike more and more this product even if belongs to them. So, this brand confrunted with serious problems. Below, I want to show you an inspirational and very smart campaign, in my opinion, which won many awards such as Cannes Lions Neuromarketing Award at Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival 2011, Grand Prix in the Promo & Activation Lions at Cannes International Festival of Creativity, and many others.

ROM campaign reached over 15 mil people, 67% of the entire Romanian population. The PR activities during the campaign generated free media of over 300,000 euro. ROM became the favorite chocolate bar of Romanians: from 14.5% to 25,9% (79% increase of the indicator) surpassing long-time leader Snickers. Rapidly, the American ROM was sold out and became a collectors’ item, while the volumes of Romanian ROM rose with 2% above the market evolution.
As you may notice, a smart teasing, some funny jokes  and focusing on a central idea of the brand may be ways to gain people attention and to make them talk about an uncool brand. Now, Rom Chocolate bar is loved again. I hope you'll enjoy the campaign and when I'll go to Romania I will bring you some delicious Rom bars :P
Maria Bogus