Bucharest not Budapest
ROM Chocolate Bar
Issue 30 | March 2014
Agency
McCann Bucharest
Creative Team
Creative Partner Adrian Botan Executive Creative Director Catalin Dobre Creative Director Nir Refuah, MRM Romania Art Directors Arpad Rezi Vlad Macarie Copywriters Sebastian Olar Danna Blum Cristina Tatar Digital Creative Adrian Constantin
Production Team
Production Company Studio Set Producer Bogdan Orcula
Other Credits
Account Director/ Manager Laura Boboc Alina Marin Andra Constantin Anamaria Ionita Client Account Director/Manager Ionela Buta Media Director Alina Carasol PR Director Carmen Bistrian
Date
July 2013
Background
Building on the patriotic campaigns of the recent past, ROM, Romania's leading chocolate-bar, wanted to remind Romanians that the brand was as Romanian as they were. Indeed, it had had the word "Bucharest" written all over it for over 50 years.
Idea
All too many people have mistaken Bucharest, the capital of Romania, with Budapest, capital of next- door neighbour Hungary.
For instance, 400 Spanish soccer fans, who had tickets to watch Athletic Bilbao play Atletico Madrid in the Champions League final in Bucharest flew to Budapest instead.
"Hello Budapest", called out Lenny Kravitz when in concert in Bucharest. Iron Maiden and Whitesnake made the same mistake.
For Romanians, it was funny. But painful.
So, ROM stepped in. At the airport, signs were put up saying: Bucharest, not Budapest. And then Romanians were invited to join the campaign. Online tutorials explained the confusion and a browser add-on allowed them to add "not Budapest" to every mention of Bucharest on the web.
They could get tee-shirts that supported the cause while the large tourist hotels were also provided with ROM kits to alert their visitors to their actual location.
Even the mayor of Bucharest joined in, explaining the differences between the two cities.
Results
The lead singer of Iron Maiden publicly apologised for saying Budapest instead of Bucharest.
He helped the campaign generate free media worth 215,000 euros with 12 TV broadcasts about the campaign, more the 7 million media impressions and over 800% growth in social brand engagement.
Tracking studies indicated a 10% increase in spontaneous awareness, a 14% increase in "favourite brand" and brand image attributes reaching all-time highs.
Our Thoughts
The multi award winning “American ROM” campaign was always going to be a hard act to follow. But, once again, the creatives have found a nicely nationalistic platform to exploit. And they have done it beautifully!
They have shifted the campaign from a platform of “Romanians don’t care” to one of “Foreigners don’t know”. Mistaken identity on this international scale has provided the opportunity for lots of fun.
I await with keen interest where this campaign goes next with this positioning they have made so brilliantly their own.