Title	NOTHING™
Brand	DNB
Product/Service	SPARE (SAVINGS APP)
Category	B02. Promotional Item Design
Entrant	TRY REKLAME Oslo, NORWAY
Idea Creation	TRY REKLAME Oslo, NORWAY
Media Placement	VIZEUM Oslo, NORWAY
Production	APT Oslo, NORWAY
Production 2	EINAR FILM & FORTELLINGER Oslo, NORWAY
Additional Company	DNB ITV Oslo, NORWAY

Name	Company	Position
Sebastian Rasch	Try	Art Director
Mads Rolland Krogh	Try	Copywriter
Egil Pay	Try	Art Director
Lars Joachim Grimstad	Try	Copywriter
Preben Moan	TRY	Art Director
Camilla Bjørnhaug	TRY	Copywriter
Anette Bellika Finnager	Try	Art Director
Thea Bjørndal Iversen	TRY	Copywriter
Jeppe Gjesti	Try	Designer
Kristina Skogen	Try	Account manager
Arne Eggen	Try	Account Director

Background

The biggest bank in Norway, DNB, asked us to create a campaign for their savings app ”Spare” (Save). There was only one issue: The campaign was set to launch in the middle of January, Norway’s biggest and ever-increasing annual sales month. Thus, our challenge was to break through the noise of deal-pushing advertising to talk about the exact opposite thing; saving money. It was a nationwide campaign with a budget of around €300.000 allocated to creative development and production.

Describe the creative idea

When a bank wants you to save more, they first have to help you spend less. So how do you make happy-shoppers with money to spend question their shopping-habits and consider saving instead? We took the challenge head on by launching a competing product: Nothing™ – the product that’s designed to make it easier to put money in your savings account, while still quenching the thirst for shopping. Simply put, it’s a sexy box of air that you could purchase by saving money. Nothing™ was introduced with a big launch-campaign that attacked consumer-culture as much as it praised itself. And with a web-shop, pop-up shops, and retail placement, we made it possible for people to “buy” a physical box of Nothing™ (by saving money in the “Save”-app).

Describe the execution

The Nothing™ box had to represented the idea of the whole campaign in its simplest form. It had to be designed in a way that made it look like a real product while at the same time showing that it had no content. The solution was a minimalistic design with a transparent view into the box. Well aware that we were creating packaging for nothing, we chose recycled and renewable cardboard and plastic. Another important consideration was that the box had be designed to both be the hero of a big ad campaign and a physical product to be hung on shelves and pop-up shops. The box was designed in 4 sizes - S, M, L, and XL - each representing a different saving amount.

List the results

The goal wasn’t to sell as many Nothing™ boxes as possible, but to get people to start saving through the “Save” app. Yet, we sold plenty of boxes both online and in stores. As for the app, the campaign made a clear impact: Daily downloads of the app tripled during the campaign period. Use of one of the apps main features, “saving goals”, doubled during the campaign period. For the first time in many years, Norway’s spending on consumer products decreased in the month of January. Whether we had anything to do with it or not, we’re sure our efforts didn’t hurt.