“Magnumize your senses” campaign started from the need to establish Magnum as the “Authority of taste and pleasure” and developed this objective creating a high level sensorial experience educating and engaging the consumer regarding the benefits of the product.

The challenge

Magnum is the world's leading impulse ice cream brand on the Romanian market. Although consumers perceive Magnum ice-cream brand as a high quality product, they also see it “more expensive than they afford”. That made Magnum “not relevant for everybody”.

So, our brief was to push the brand closer to the consumer and introduce Magnum World and Magnum philosophy in Romania by establishing Magnum as the “Authority of taste and pleasure”. Also, the evaluation criterion for the communication campaign was high: to reach 2 million people.

But still, the problem was how could we make consumers deny the price aspect see beyond facts?

Another challenge that we faced was the huge decrease of the budget, with 70%: from 100.000 to 30.000 euro. The initial proposals were no longer available so we have to find a new solution, in a much shorter time, which will lead us to the same expectations as the client rose.

The only problem left was how to be visible and relevant on the market in a high sell season full of promotions, in a torrid Bucharest full of bored people.

The strategy

The strategy was to concentrate on the most important benefit of the product: the taste and take it to a higher experiential level by educating the consumer.

The insight was “if one sense is cut off, the others amplify”, and that’s how we decided upon the blind dinner experience.

So we initiated a blind tasting experience in an unconventional way. We called it “Magnumize your Senses”. The experience was meant to attract people to a unique experience, a treatment of sense that no other brand has thought of before.

We set the tasting restaurant in a former bank safe used as wine vault. The place had no windows, so the light was absent by the place’s nature. Downstairs - no movement, no sound, no smell. Upstairs- lights, music, entertainment – the place was a nice and modern restaurant in the heart of the city. People were guided to the experiential place where the entire world of senses opened. There the magic began!

The communication focused on the idea, it was the first blind tasting experience in which everyone could participate. The launching was developed as a private event for press, VIPs, opinion leaders, bloggers. They were the first to enter the world of senses and share the experience with the people.

The bloggers present at the launching event were just the triggers for the entire social media community; they developed contests and spread invitation to “Magnumize your Senses” experience. A website was developed to communicate the event and to download the invitation. The event was also communicated on Facebook – people shared the experience and invited friends, Flickr – pictures from the vault during the event were posted, Youtube and Twitter – movies and a lot of impression from the ones who already experienced the darkness.
We also exploited other “darkness” opportunities: Cinemas and bars around the place closed the lights& sounds and invited people to the blind tasting experience in the vault.

Campaign’s execution:

"Magnumize your Senses" started from this idea:"darkness sharpens the senses, that once the eyes are closed, a whole new world of sensations reveals".

People who entered the restaurant had to choose from the menu, one of the three stories: “The Pure Beach”, “The Tree” and “The Rock”. They had no idea about their choice. After, that they had to leave at the entrance all the objects that could generate light: watches, mobile phones, lighters.

They were guided to the dark room by blind waiters who took their order and helped them to sit at the tables. They had few moments to get comfortable with the place and after they received the order. While tasting they could concentrate only on the taste, and the stories were revealed: The Pure Beach” was Vanilla Magnum, “The Tree was Chocolate and Almond Magnum” and “The Rock” was Dark Chocolate Magnum.

The launching event was organized in the first blind tasting experience day. VIPs, journalists, opinion leaders, TV presenters and bloggers were present to find out in premiere the secrets on Magnum Blind Tasting Experience.

The campaign had a strong social media component, which included the support of the well known bloggers; contests were developed their blogs, twitters and Facebook pages each of them recruiting other social media representatives and inviting them to the event. This generated a strong public debate around the event and the tasting preferences; the most important TV shows in Romania sent their reporters to shoot the experience with IR (infrared) cameras.

The event’s webste http://www.magnumize.ro/ became very familiar with all the guest – this was the best way to download the invitation and have the chance to participate to the event. Facebook fan page became a place to interact with people, colleting their feedback (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Magnum-Rasfat-Regal/142796319064162). Also, after the experience, everyone had the chance to write his/her opinion in a special book of impressions. The most interesting were posted on the discussion points on Facebook.

A huge balloon in the shape of a tear showed that the location and event were marked on Google Maps. We also went in Cinemas and bars around the location - all the movies started with the invitation read in complete darkness, with nothing but a black screen, announcing

The results:

“Magnumize your Sense” campaign ran for just 14 days and our messages reached over 6 million people, - 3 times more than the initial requirement.
The number of quests for the Blind tasting experience was double that the initial requirements and also 200% more than we have prepared; people queue up to 3 hours to enter.

The campaign generated over 15,000 reactions in the social media, 8000 like on Facebook page, over 110 articles and TV stories; also an impressive number of internet hits were monitored: over 5 mil.