PRE-ORDER THE FUTURE

TitlePRE-ORDER THE FUTURE
BrandNESTE
Product/ServiceRENEWABLE MATERIALS
Category B13. Content Led Engagement & Marketing
Entrant TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Idea Creation TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Placement VIZEUM Helsinki, FINLAND
PR TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Production COCOA MEDIAPRODUCTIONS Helsinki, FINLAND
Credits
Name Company Position
Steve Brown TBWA\Helsinki Content Director
Iikka Maunumaa TBWA\Helsinki Business Director
Nooma Murremäki TBWA\Helsinki Project Manager
Janni Wiederholm TBWA\Helsinki Creative Content Strategist
Juhana Hokkanen TBWA\Helsinki Creative Technologist
Ville Ohtonen TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Kalle Wallin TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Daniel Julier TBWA\Helsinki Product Designer
Umberto Onza TBWA\Helsinki Product Designer
Milja Hakala TBWA\Helsinki Project Manager
Jeroen Van Hove TBWA\Helsinki Chief Data Officer
Erno Reinikainen TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Tuomas Perälä TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Pia Grekula TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Juhani Ylitalo TBWA\Helsinki Creative
Aku Vehmersalo Vizeum Account Director
Heli Ruotsalainen Vizeum Head of Social Media
Sara Tossavainen Vizeum Performance Marketing Consultant
Ada-Maria Wäck Vizeum Development Manager, Programmatic
Taito Kawata Cocoa Director
Kimmo Manninen Cocoa Producer
Joel Bergvall Shareability Director
Prince Ea Make Smart Cool Futurologist
Noora Ranta TBWA\Helsinki Project Manager
Miika Pärni TBWA\Helsinki Senior Developer
Iiro Hokkanen TBWA\Helsinki Director
Markus Malmberg TBWA\Helsinki PR Manager
Graziano Monteleone TBWA\Helsinki Graphic Designer
Mikko Paasto TBWA\Helsinki Senior Web Developer
Heidi Aalto TBWA\Helsinki Production AD

The Campaign

Look around: you're surrounded by things made from plastic and things transported with fossil fuel. You hadn't realized it, because you're focused on the end products, be they Apples or apples. That's why we moved peoples' focus to the end products of the future. We let them participate in dreaming, innovating and creating a better future. Even "Pre-order the Future". Pre-order the Future is an ongoing content campaign led by Prince Ea–an environmentally active spoken word artist. The campaign demonstrates product and service concepts, which use renewable fuels and plastic. The concepts included carbon free traveling and logistics, earphones controlled with brainwaves, a transportable office and a holographic learning platform for school classes. Pre-order the Future invited people to suggest more concepts and to vote, which one should be developed into a prototype. To prove its commitment, Neste Oil even dropped 'Oil' of its corporate name, becoming just Neste.

Execution

The core of the content campaign is neste.com/Pre-orderTheFuture. The page introduced the product/service concepts, invited users to comment on them and suggest new ones. The site also served as a platform for articles on topics from Pokémon GO to the first flight between USA and Cuba. The concepts were developed and investigated together with Neste, Prince Ea and Aalto University. Several press releases about the product concepts were published in various markets. The site's users' cookies were used for retargeting: those who read articles about the holographic concept were later exposed to education related content etc. Campaign video content was shared on Neste's own and Prince Ea's channels, mainly YouTube and Facebook. It was also seeded to several content pages, channels and groups. Once the campaign went viral on social media, press releases about the "viral hit" were seeded to traditional media.

Pre-order the Future beat all expectations. The videos became viral hits, when Viral Thread, UniLad and Young Verse republished them. "Everyone Dies But Not Everyone Lives" got 138 000 000 views and 2 700 000 shares, and "I Just Sued The School System", with 213 000 000 views and 6 100 000 shares, is becoming the most viral ad of 2016. Over 700 news articles (from Business Insider to Bloomberg) and a Fox News TV interview raised campaign impressions to 2 671 000 000 (yes, billions) in 218 countries and earned media value exceeded the campaign costs 16-fold. Most importantly: all major automotive, industrial, energy and IT corporations visited the campaign page. And soon Ikea announced, that it will replace ALL its plastic with Neste's renewable plastic. Neste's brand value rose from 427 to 618 million euros (2015 to 2016) and the stock value by 35,7% (April to October).

The Situation

Pre-order the Future is not an ad campaign. It is a platform of creating meaningful discussion topics and contagious content. It is not a brand talking about things it does, it is a brand doing things that get talked about. Letting the audience innovate possibilities, that renewable fuel and materials enable. Pre-order the Future didn't make the target group click at banners. It made them read news stories and watch news broadcasts, and want to find out more. And it succeeded in making them visit the campaign page. As did it raising both the brand value and stock price.

The Strategy

For a small, unknown player like Neste paid advertising wasn't an option. That's why Pre-order the Future isn't an ad campaign, but rather a platform for brand behavior, creating real, innovative products and services. It targets the general public–it aims at making people talk, the social media buzz and the press write about it. As the B2B decision makers of multinational corporations and public organizations heard about Pre-order the Future in news, social media and through influencers, they felt obliged to act. Prince Ea was involved deeply throughout: from a planning workshop in January, to multiple video content of him exploring renewable alternatives with e.g. Rovio Games and finally acting as a judge in the prototype jury in October. Prince Ea wasn't a mere paid spokesperson; Pre-order the Future enabled him to address an issue he truly cares about, ultimately making him an even bigger and more relevant influencer.