“Fists of Fusian”
Nestlé/Maggi Fusian
Issue 25 | December 2012
Agency
MercerBell
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: David Bell Digital Creative Director: Carmela Soares Art Director: Ben Lent Copywriter: David Barton Designers: Rodolfo Sarno, Dan Fowler
Production Team
Head of Digital Development: Scott Forrester Flash Developer: Richard Lama Senior Web Developer: Phillip William Producers: Harley Tesoriero, Jessica Tham Sound: Smith & Western Motion Designer: Joseph Harper
Other Credits
Digital Strategist: Maura Tuohy Community Management: Charles Moore Group Account Director: Sabrina Antoniou Senior Account Manager: Alisha Burr
Date
Launched in August 2012
Background
Asian flavours are driving growth in the warm snacking category for Gen Y consumers but Maggi Fusian was struggling because, with little brand or product heritage in Asian flavours, it couldn’t hang its hat on authenticity.
The brief was to change Fusian’s fortunes and entertain a bored Gen Y audience. These young people don’t differentiate between ads and content – they just want to be entertained. They’re always mashing up, auto-tuning, and LOLing about the things they like. So the idea was to let them tell their story the way they do best.
Idea
A Kung Fu movie in Mandarin was bought and broken down into episodes. Using a Facebook app, people were invited to write the English subtitles. Fans could vote for their favourite clips and the winners became part of the world's first crowd-sourced Kung Fu film, 'Fists of Fusian'.
By involving fans in the process, a conversation was started between the brand and its audience which satisfied their appetite for entertainment and Fusian noodles, one caption at a time.
Results
It was a box-office success. After two months there were over 454,527 trailer views, 22,822 App views with 66% of App users returning.
There have been over 4.1 million viral impressions and 577 videos captioned, averaging 756 votes per episode.
+ 15.5% average post engagement (11% standard)
+ 98% positive post sentiment (70% standard)
Our Thoughts
The intriguing thing about this campaign is when you go to the Facebook page, how many comments have been written about the Maggi products. (Jordan Maletino: Your noodles are the best!!LOL. Aidan Coorey: I have a sick obsession for your noodles. Thank you.)The kids who are playing with the app understand fully that it’s advertising but because it’s funny and involving, that’s okay in a way that a 30 second TV spot isn’t.
People hate advertising. Until they are in control and then, if the idea is engaging and amusing, they’re happy to play along.