THE #DURIANCHALLENGE

TitleTHE #DURIANCHALLENGE
BrandKOSTMINISTERIET
Product/ServiceKOSTMINISTERIET (THE MINISTRY OF FOOD)
Category B02. Non-profit / Foundation-led Education & Awareness
Entrant EHRENSTRAHLE DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation EHRENSTRAHLE DDB Stockholm, SWEDEN
Media Placement UNITED SCREENS Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production KNUT Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Johan Nerman Ehrenstråhle Copywriter
Andréas Silverblad Ehrenstråhle Art Director
Jenny Wikman Ehrenstråhle Project Manager
Anna Nordström Carlsson Ehrenstråhle Account Manager
Marie Molander Ehrenstråhle Production Manager
Christian Godden Ehrenstråhle Planner
Erika Lindblom Ehrenstråhle Graphic Designer
Simon Sehlén Ehrenstråhle Final Artist
Petter Nerman Ehrenstråhle Content Creator

Describe any restrictions or regulations regarding Healthcare/RX/Pharma communications in your country/region including

There's like a trillion, but none of them apply when marketing fruit. It might be worth mentioning that durian's horrible smell makes it impossible to ship without taking special precautions.

Describe the target audience and why your work is relevant to them. Pharma audience types:

Swedes in general eat way too little fruit and vegetables for their own good. Of all demographic groups, men aged 15 to 25 are the worst with an average daily intake of less than half of the recommended 500 grams.

Background

Situation: Swedes in general eat way too little fruit and vegetables for their own good. Kostministeriet, loosely translated "The Ministry of Food", is a non-profit initiative with the sole purpose to change this and thus boost public health. An important part of their work is making people aware of the many benefits of a greener diet. Brief: Of all demographic groups, men aged 15 to 25 eat the least fruit and vegetables. Produce a campaign that spurs a behavioral change by making these youngsters aware of the problem. Objectives: 1. Make Swedish men between 15 and 25 understand that (A) 500 grams is the recommended daily intake of fruit and vegetables – and (B) they're most likely far from these quantities themselves. 2. Increase awareness, liking and trust for Kostministeriet within the target group.

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

The #DurianChallenge mixed events, web content and social media to get the message out there. But it all started and ended with direct. The first step consisted of a dozen carefully produced "challenge kits" being mailed out to selected influencers, enabling the challenge itself as well working as a Trojan horse carrying the Kostministeriet brand through the content-driven parts of the campaign. The grand final was a nationwide tour where 8,000 event participants got to smell and taste this monstrosity of a fruit first hand. To many, an experience so traumatizing they'll surely remember the campaign for years to come.

Describe the creative idea

When in Rome, do as the Romans. So instead of a sugarcoated standard rant about how good fruit and vegetables are for your health (kids hate those), we did quite the opposite and gave those YouTube aficionados a challenge too repulsive to ignore: Eat 500 grams of durian – the world's most disgusting fruit.

Describe the execution

Durian may taste bad, but it's even more infamous for its vomit-invoking smell. We realized early we'd need a special packaging solution to even be able to mail the fruit. Something we managed to turn to our advantage. The drawn-out, seven-layered unboxing process only added to the suspense as our influencers gradually approached the contents of the box, stench level by stench level, ensuring Kostministeriet a lot of deserved high-quality exposure in the videos. Since durian is practically impossible to get your hands on in Sweden, anyone intrigued by the intense reactions on YouTube had to turn to Kostministeriet and our #DurianChallenge Tour to still their curiosity and take on the challenge themselves. When they did we took the opportunity of educating them on the health benefits of a greener diet and let them try some yummy fruit as well.

Describe the strategy

Target audience: Males aged 15 to 25 – the group of Swedes generally consuming the smallest amounts of fruit and vegetables. Approach: Since traditional advertising won't get through to the target group, we'll need to speak to them on their own terms in a way that captures their attention. This combined with the insight that the target group spends more time than any other demographical group on YouTube made us narrow down the brief to something like: "Produce a YouTube campaign that gets the message through to the target group by earning their attention." Call to action: Eat the world's most disgusting fruit – for a good cause! ("disgusting" and "good" are literal opposites in Swedish)

List the results

- More than 600,000 organic views - Over 8,000 people actually trying the abomination of a fruit - A slightly shocking 98,5 percent positive feedback in social media, despite the generally sceptical target audience and the (to be honest) somewhat boring subject - Increased Swedish Google searches for "durian" by 300 percent and "500 gram" (the recommended daily intake of fruit and vegetables) by 280 percent in the wake of the campaign