American Rom: Stirring Romanian Patriotism

An overview of the advertising agency and campaign’s objectives

‘American ROM’ campaign run in Romania in 2010 has won theGrand Prix in the Promo & Activation Lions at CannesInternational Festival of Creativity (Ducan, 2011).Responsible for this success is McCann Erickson. Thisadvertising agency contributes the most to the business growthof its clients, reinforcing brands’ long-term development(IQads, n.d.). Founded in 1994, McCann Erickson Romania hashelped in building powerful brands on Romanian market,including: Kandia, Sprite, Fanta Shokata, Coca-Cola, Maggi(Nestle), Conex/Vodafone, Kiss FM and MTV Romania (IQads,n.d.). In addition, McCann Erickson’s vision is to stronglyinfluence the demand of its clients’ brands through anintegrated approach.

ROM was first launched in 1964 and it is very popular withelderly people who associate it with a mix of nostalgia andpatriotic feelings (Emap, 2012). ‘Authentic ROM’ wasrecognized as the Romania’s favourite chocolate bar but thegrowing desire of young people to leave the country and theirdissatisfaction with Romania were sufficient grounds for a newcampaign (Warc, 2012). Studies showed that only twelve percent of the Romania’s young population is patriotic (MercuryResearch, 2009 cited by Emap, 2012) and more than eighty percent of them consider emigrate (CCSB, 2009, cited by Emap,2012).

Moreover, within economic crisis, ROM’s direct competitorMars-owned Snickers had considerable advantages: “a strongdistribution, a more complex product, and the shine of a cool,young, internationally successful brand” (Emap, 2012). Marshad promotions such as ‘buy three get one free’ and ‘20 percent free’, promotions which become approachable for the young

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target but which also have decreased perceived quality (Warc,2012).

Therefore, ROM “wanted to appeal the youth disenchanted by thecountry’s economic and political problems” (Budrina, 2011). Itwas time for a campaign to restore ROM’s reputation amongyoung people and Romanians in general, a campaign which wouldmake them realize that the loss of a Romanian traditionalsweet may be a failure of patriotism and their Romanianidentity (Emap, 2012).

Product

When it comes to understanding the product that is beingadvertised, Richard Vaughn (1980: p.30) developed a matrixwith four quadrants which “outline four potentially majorgoals for advertising strategy: to be informative, affective,habit forming or to promote self-satisfaction.” From thispoint of view, ROM fits the forth quadrant as it is a low-involvement product that satisfy personal tastes. Vaughn(1980) believed for this kind of products consumer’s attentionshould be captured by billboards, newspapers or at the point-of-sale.

A similar grid was developed by Rossiter and Percy which“helps the manager’s thinking about a product or service interms of the target audience’s involvement with the choicedecision and the motivation that drive its behaviour” (Percyand Elliott, 2009: p.210). From this perspective ROM adapted alow-involvement transformational brand attitude strategy.

Creative strategy

“Great advertising is inspired by insights about brands,consumers, and how the two interact. It starts with a problemfrom the client and ends with a solution for consumers”(Drewniany & Jewler, 2008: p.1). According to Warc (2012) “Romwas Romania’s favourite chocolate bar branded with thenational flag. But when consumers deserted it for US rival

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Snickers, Rom created a strategy that provoked a patrioticreaction through a spoof real-time campaign”.

Creative process contains five steps: immersion, digestion,incubation, illumination and reality or verification (Young,1975, cited by Belch & Belch, 2009). The first step increating this new campaign was the account planning, whichrevealed very useful information about ROM’s target audience,who were 20-35 year olds (Warc, 2012). BV McCann EricksonRomania was already aware that patriotism could be a verysensitive subject among Romanians. Based on this assumption,the agency “began an extensive analysis of online discussionsof the topic by Romanians on forums, blogs and social media”(Warc, 2012: p.4). The main findings were that Romaniansthough low about their nation (Warc, 2012). After thesefindings, there have been conducted a series of face-to-faceand online group discussions with 20 to 35-year-olds. However,the agency discovered that participants had a positiveapproach toward Romania when it was compared with othernations (Emap, 2012). The agency called this phenomena‘reactive patriotism’ (Warc, 2012).

After the digestion and incubation phases, the agency came upwith a radical solution (illumination phase). In literature‘the big idea’ is defined as:

“That flash of insight that synthesize the purpose of thestrategy, joins the product benefit with consumer desirein a flash, involving way, brings the subject to life,and makes the reader or audience stop, look, and listen”(O’Toole, 1985 cited by Belch & Belch, 2009: p.270).

In ROM’s case the big idea was to replace Romanian flag on theROM packaging with an American flag. In Drewniany & Jewler’s(2008) opinion, a creative advertisement creates a strongconnection between the target audience and the brand and “itpresents the selling idea in an unexpected way” (p.6). It wasuninspected for ROM to launch an indirect and paradoxical

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wake-up call to Romanians, by changing Romanian symbol andvalues into so-called ‘American Dream’.

The campaign had five phases: the teaser, the debate stage,the reveal stage, concluding the debate stage and the finalstage (Warc, 2012).

In the teasing phase the ‘American ROM’ was launched in twomajor supermarket chains and it came with ironic slogans inEnglish (Warc, 2012). This phase lasted seven day but duringthis period the debate stage had already started. Through thisphase, all channels were directing people online, invitingthem for a debate on the campaign’s microsite, NOULROM.RO, andthe ROM’s Facebook page (Warc, 2012). However, after sevendays the reveal stage started by changing overnight the‘American ROM’ into the authentic ROM (Emap, 2012). Even a TVspot was created to announce this. Concluding the debate stageand the final stage have been the most important phases as ROMtook direct contact with the most active supporters ofRomanian values in order to create “an anthem dedicated toRomanian ROM and his fans – sang by real people, ROM's fans”(Emap, 2012: p.7).

Source, Message and Channel

In advertising, in order to develop an effective campaign, abrand should choose the right spokesperson to deliver themarketing message (Belch & Belch, 2009). It was known that inthe previous five years Kandia Dulce had changed its ownersseveral times. The creative planners of this new campaign tookadvantage of this situation and created a scenario in which anAmerican executive boasts about the switch. The reason for

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doing this was to increase source credibility. It is knownthat “information from a credible source influences beliefs,opinions, attitudes, and/or behaviours through […]internalization” (Belch & Belch, 2009: p.179). Thus, theadvertisers have opted for this ‘corporate leader’ and placedhim in a stereotypical American business office. By doingthis, the source seemed to be very accurate and trustworthy.

Figure 1: The New ROM Believes in Change (Source: Warc 2012)

The marketing message represents the method by which themarketing communication is presented to receivers. The messageis very important in determining the advertising effectiveness(Belch & Belch, 2009). “Extensive research has been conductedon how the structure of a persuasive message can influence itseffectiveness including order of presentation, conclusiondrawing, message sidedness, refutation, and verbal versusvisual message characteristics” (Belch & Belch, 2009: p.192).

In the teasing phase of the campaign, there were created twoTV spots which lasted fifteen seconds each. “Research suggeststhat the creative and execution of the spot may be moreimportant in determining the effectiveness of a spot thancommercial length” (Advertising Research Foundation ARF, 2012:p.3), but “strong 15s ads can increase selling powerdramatically” (Blair & Kuse, 2004: p.79) and draw attention.In these spots were used one-sided messages, which were ironicand defiant to the Romanian values.

“Hey, what’s this in my hand? It’s the New ROM! It’s notthe same. It’s better! The Romanian flag was replacedwith the American one. Why? For you. So you can eat itanywhere in the word and be proud. Try the New ROM. Withthe American flag. With the taste of coolness.WWW.NOULROM.RO“

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Figure 2: American executive (Source: Rom Autentic 2011)

“We Americans know something about stars. We have starson the flag. We reached the stars when we putted the manon the Moon. Now ROM is a star too. How? We replaced theRomanian flag with the American one. So Romanians canshine on too. Try the New ROM. With the American flag.With the taste of coolness. WWW.NOULROM.RO”

In addition to TV spots there were created aggressive andprovocative billboards with such punch lines as ‘Patriotismwon’t feed you’ and ‘Let’s build America here’. Also, for

these messages was used the humour appeal: incongruity whichmasks the ambiguous or vague deception (Shabbir & Thwaites,2007).

Figure 3: Punch lines (Source: Godon no date)

The reveal stage also had a fifteen seconds TV spot in whichthe same American executive uses the refutational appeal toregain people's sympathy. Through this TV spot ROM announcedthe return of the Authentic Romanian ROM. Along this phase the“new out-of-home and print and trade materials quoted linesinspired by famous Romanian patriotic poems, albeit slightlyrewritten to allude to Rom” (Warc, 2012: p.4).

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Figure 4: Reveal (Source: Warc 2012)

“The channel is the method by which the message travels fromthe source to the receiver” (Belch & Belch, 2009: p.149). For‘American ROM’ campaign there were used several communicationchannels, such as: “Internet - display, Internet - general,Internet - microsites, widgets, Newspapers, Outdoor, out-of-home, Packaging and design, Point-of-purchase, in-store media,Public relations, Radio, Social media, Television, Word ofmouth and viral” (Warc, 2012: p.2).

Effectiveness

The principal objective of ‘American ROM’ campaign was toregain the sympathy of young target audience and to increasebrand preference among youth.

Firstly, according to Warc (2012), the budget for thiscampaign was $3-5 million (approximately £2-3 mill), “whichwas less than 40% of Snickers' media budget for the sameperiod” (AlfaCont MediaWatch, as in Warc, 2012: p.11). Eventhough BV McCann Erickson had a modest budget, it managed tosubstantially increase brand indicators (Rosca, 2011). Apost-testing study showed that the brand indicator increasedwith 79 per cent, which meant that ROM became the favouritechocolate bar of Romanians (Warc, 2012).

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Secondly, the ‘American ROM’ campaign reached over 15 millionpeople, which represents 67 per cent of the entire population.This campaign is a very good example of a mass participation(Warc, 2012). This fact also generated a free publicity worthapproximately 300.000 euros (Emap, 2012).

“Tens of thousands of people got involved, from postingcomments online to creating spoof videos and onlinebanners. In particular, six Facebook Causes, severalonline petitions and even a flash mob, all supported the'authentic' Rom. One of the best examples of thisreaction was the Facebook Cause group, 'We want the oldRom back'. It attracted over 18,000 members in the firstfour days of the campaign […]. By comparison, the mostimportant social media cause group in Romania took twoyears to gain 28,000 members” (Warc, 2012: p.5).

Last but not least, participating with ‘American ROM’campaign, BV McCann Erickson Romania won six awards at CannesInternational Festival of Creativity, the most importantfestival for creativity in communication (Rosca, 2011). Theywon two grand prix, two gold awards and two bronze (Rosca,2011).

All in all, the American ROM campaign represented a successnot only for the Kandia Dulce owned ROM, but also for itsadvertising agency, BV McCann Erickson Romania, which managedto make itself known by the numerous awards that it has won.

“Rom was a brand that had the courage to test and playwith both its own identity and with national pride, andto plan to do so on a national scale. We made theapplication of cultural insight not just one factor inour approach – as it is in many campaigns – but thecentral plank of our strategy” (Warc, 2012: p.6).

Competitive brands can learn a few things from this campaign.For example, “many creative people follow proven formulas whencreating ads because they are safe” (Belch & Belch, 2009:

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p.?). This was not ROM’s case. For ‘American ROM’ campaigncreative planners though beyond the advertising. They tookmajor risks in order to achieve their objectives. Theirplanning of channels and messages was remarkable, as theycreated a ‘consumer journey’ in order to understand theirtarget audience’s attitudes towards certain stimuli (Warc,2012).

They also used television and out-of-home as importantchannels in order to provoke people and determine them toreact in a certain way (Warc, 2012). They “opened channels ofcommunication for collecting, monitoring and responding topeople's reactions” (Warc, 2012: p.13), such as the micrositeand official Facebook page.

Even though in the campaign there were used two major channels(television and out-of-home) in order to deliver the messages,the agency states that “without the online component, thecampaign would have made no sense to the public, and [they]ensure that [their] digital messages were all changedovernight when the true origins of Rom were revealed” (Warc,2012: p.13).

All in all, ‘American ROM’ was not only an advertisingcampaign but it was also a social movement which changed youngRomanians’ attitude towards their country. From that moment BVMcCann Erickson Romania and ROM launched other campaigns suchas: ‘Romanians are smart’ and ‘Bucharest NOT Budapest’ inorder to promote Romania and to change unjustified negativeattitude of foreigners towards Romanians.

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Reference List

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