Title	ROMBOT
Brand	ROM AUTENTIC
Product/Service	CONFECTIONERY
Category	C01. Use of Data Driven Insight
Entrant	McCANN BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
Idea Creation	McCANN BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
Media Placement	UM BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
PR	McCANN BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

Name	Company	Position
CATALIN DOBRE	MCCANN WORLDGROUP ROMANIA	Chief Creative Officer
IOANA FILIP	MCCANN WORLDGROUP ROMANI	Executive Creative Director
IOANA ZAMFIR	MCCANN WORLDGROUP ROMANIA	Creative Group Head
MIRUNA MACRI	MCCANN WORLDGROUP ROMANIA	Art Director
ALIN SIRBU	MCCANN WORLDGROUP ROMANIA	Art Director
MIHAI VASILE	MCCANN WORLDGROUP ROMANIA	Copywriter

The Campaign

ROM wanted to create a virtual crowd sourced persona that could represent our true values, be objective, easy to talk to and loved by both the new generation and the media alike. That’s how the idea of ROMBOT came to life. ROMBOT is the first virtual ambassador of a country, a co-created artificial intelligence designed to learn from Romanians about Romania, with a clear mission to tell the world who we truly are. With 90% usage of internet for Romanian young people, we decided to use this tool and transform it into a voice of a generation. A young generation for whom Romanian international stereotypes are changing, there are new hopes, and they want to say it to the world. So we gave them ROMBOT, the tool to represent the new generation abroad.

Creative Execution

After a teaser campaign on social media & TV, on the 1st December, the National Day of Romania, we launched ROMBOT the first virtual ambassador of a country. People could scan the special designed ROM chocolate bar and talk to ROMBOT or simply access: www.rombot.ro where the AI would ask them questions about Romania. Though the front end of the ROMBOT made it look like a chatbot, the back end was a true learning machine because every conversation was stored and analyzed turning the data received into knowledge. To feed the conversation, we shared constant updates from the learning process of ROMBOT on social media. This sparked a national debate regarding our national values and rallied people to come together to teach the virtual ambassador the right things. ROMBOT was communicated abroad through targeted banners on Romania related search terms, inviting people to come discover what Romania is all about.

ROMBOT sales results ROMOT became star product among all its available packages + 11% vs same period last year ROMBOT learning results 1,5 millions of answers gathered from Romanias by ROMBOT More than 212.167 minutes spent on site – 442 days of ambassadorship Returning visitors: 21,9% Average time spent on site: 01:47 min ROMBOT media results 73% national reach ? 13,463,250 persons all, national 684,293 International media impressions Online earned media: 200% vs. spending CTR: 0.09% (vs. 0.08% benchmark)

In 2016, ROM Autentic, the Romanian chocolate bar with a strong heritage since 1969, was losing share on a crowded market of chocolate bars. The challenge was to find relevance for young people by giving them a powerful reason to connect again with ROM through a reactive patriotism mission, and boost sales. ROMBOT, the first artificial intelligence to become a virtual ambassador, was ROM chocolate’s way of empowering Romanians to tell the world what they wanted it to hear about their country. By innovating with the use of artificial intelligence, we channeled internet’s power, giving it a stronger voice

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The creation & launch of ROMBOT was split in 2 phases: 1st phase - Romanian version of the AI was created and people were invited to answer ROMBOT’s questions so he could tell the world about us. But, what seemed as a seamless conversation with a bot was actually helping the AI to learn about the country. After launch we shared data ROMBOT was learning, in order to get people to rally and update his knowledge. This helped increase his knowledge and generate more coverage for the project, even in prime time talkshows 2nd phase – ROMBOT launched internationally and became able to answer foreigners questions about Romania after gathering 1.5 million answers in his database We analyzed the data, interpreted and translated it to launch internationally. We communicated through targeted search banners on most common topics related to Romania, through Romanian international communities and PR videos