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Lacta: Love in Action

Following the grand success of Lacta’s interactive film in November 2009, Kraft Foods and OgilvyOne Athens set out to create yet another integrated campaign for Lacta, Greece’s leading chocolate brand. This time, instead of producing another love story themselves, they set out to create one with their audience.

Kraft Foods and OgilvyOne crowdsourced a 27-minute branded-entertainment film, involving the audience in everything from writing to casting and styling the actors. Some even popped up as extras in the finished film. During filming, audiences were kept updated through the campaign blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

Here is a 3 minute video case study on the same.

Then on Valentine’s Day the film was aired on Greece’s top TV channel and online, with great success.

What makes this more than “UGC”

The smart leap is that the audience is not just submitting stories. They are being pulled into the messy, high-signal parts of production. Decisions that normally sit behind closed doors. Casting, styling, and creative direction. That raises commitment, because participation shifts from “I sent something” to “I helped shape what shipped.”

In European FMCG branded entertainment, letting people influence production decisions can turn a single film into a sustained participation loop that runs for weeks, not minutes.

Why this lands

This works because it gives people a credible reason to keep coming back. Not to watch ads, but to follow progress, vote, debate, and see whether their influence makes the final cut. The film becomes the payoff, but the real engine is the journey. A public build, meaning a production process made visible as it develops, turns pre-release into its own entertainment.

Extractable takeaway: If you want long-lived attention, make the audience’s role structural, not decorative. Put participation into decisions that change the output, then publish visible progress so people feel their involvement has weight.

The commercial intent underneath

Lacta gets what a standard Valentine’s spot struggles to buy. Time, conversation, and emotional ownership at scale. The brand also stays relatively in the background, so the entertainment is allowed to carry the attention while the association builds quietly.

The real question is whether the audience is helping shape the asset or merely reacting to it.

What to borrow from participatory production

Open up real decisions. Voting on meaningful choices beats asking for comments.
Show progress publicly. Updates and behind-the-scenes keep momentum alive.
Let contributors appear in the output. Even small “extra” moments create powerful ownership.
Build a finale moment. A premiere date gives the whole participation arc a shared finish line.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Lacta “Love in Action”?

It is a crowdsourced branded-entertainment film initiative where audiences contributed to and influenced key parts of the production, from story and casting to styling.

What makes this different from a normal brand film?

The audience is involved before release and in decisions that shape the final output, so the build process becomes part of the entertainment.

Why run it across so many platforms?

Because production is a multi-week narrative. Different channels support different behaviours. Updates, voting, sharing, and behind-the-scenes participation.

Why is Valentine’s Day a strong launch moment?

The theme is culturally aligned with love stories, and the calendar creates a natural deadline and shared viewing moment.

What is the main risk when crowdsourcing content like this?

If participation feels cosmetic, people drop out. The audience needs visible proof that their input changes outcomes, and the process must be curated so quality stays high.

Volkswagen: PunchDub the game

You spot a VW, call it out, and punch your friend. That old road-trip ritual gets a fresh twist when Volkswagen reframes it as “PunchDub” and expands the target from one iconic model to the full lineup. PunchDub is the name for this car-spotting punch game applied to any Volkswagen model you see.

The mechanic is simple. The moment you see a VW, the “game” triggers. With 13 different VW models in play, every sighting becomes a reason to react again, and the brand quietly teaches you that Volkswagen is more than one car.

In automotive marketing, reworking a familiar cultural habit into interactivity is a fast way to refresh how people think about a full product family.

The real question is whether your brand can turn passive noticing into an automatic, repeatable reaction loop.

It is playful. It is slightly ridiculous. And it is effective brand education disguised as a joke, because you remember what you repeatedly do in real life.

Why the “13 models” twist matters

The original game logic is narrow. It is usually about spotting a Beetle. By broadening the trigger to 13 vehicles, Volkswagen turns a niche in-joke into a scalable framework that can support an entire lineup. That is the point. You stop thinking “VW equals one car” and start thinking “VW equals a range.”

Extractable takeaway: If you have a product family, design the trigger so variety is the reason the loop keeps restarting.

What the campaign is really optimizing for

This is less about immediate conversion and more about mental availability. The brand wants to show up in the everyday, in-car moments where games happen naturally. When that happens, the campaign earns repeated exposures without asking for repeated media.

Steal the habit-hijack loop

Hijack a habit. If people already do something, reframe it instead of inventing a new behaviour.
Turn variety into a feature. The “13 models” detail makes the brand’s range the reason the game improves.
Keep the trigger obvious. Spot. Call. React. The loop has to be instant, or it will not spread.
Make the brand the punchline. A joke people repeat is often a message they remember.

A few fast answers before you act

What is PunchDub?

PunchDub is Volkswagen’s twist on the “Punch Buggy” style car-spotting game, expanding the target from one VW model to a broader set of Volkswagen vehicles.

Why does expanding to multiple models change the impact?

It converts a single-model association into lineup awareness. The “game” repeatedly reinforces that Volkswagen has many models, not just one iconic car.

What makes this kind of idea spread?

A clear trigger and a fast reaction loop. People can play it without instructions, so it travels by imitation.

Is this about product features?

Not directly. It is about brand memory. The goal is to make the lineup feel present in everyday moments, so the brand becomes easier to recall later.

What is the main risk with habit-based campaigns?

If the mechanic feels forced or complicated, it dies. The best versions feel like a natural extension of something people already do.

Norms Restaurants: Social Media Above-the-Line

A TV spot that treats social as the main stage

Here is a new TV spot promoting the NORMS Restaurants Facebook page. It does something different. The commercial is grounded in social media rather than simply being an add-on.

How it works: the channel is the creative, not the CTA

The mechanism is straightforward. Instead of telling you to “go to Facebook”, the spot behaves like social. It borrows the language, pacing, and cultural cues of the feed, then uses TV as the amplifier. By “social-native”, I mean it is structured like something you would actually scroll past in a feed. This works because viewers recognize that grammar instantly, so the follow action feels like continuing the same experience.

In US regional restaurant brands, social channels can function as a 24/7 extension of the dining room: service, deals, personality, and community in real time.

The real question is whether your mass media can behave like the channel you want people to adopt, rather than merely pointing at it.

Why it lands: the message and the operating model match

Just as social media never sleeps, NORMS Restaurants also never closes. They are open 24 hours a day. That alignment matters. The spot is not trying to look modern. It is connecting a true operational differentiator to a behaviour that is always on.

Extractable takeaway: When an “always-on” message is backed by something operationally true, the creative reads as utility instead of theatre.

The intent: make “follow us” feel like utility

The point is not only awareness. It is habit formation. If the brand is always open, then the social presence can be positioned as always available too, with updates that feel useful, timely, and worth checking. This is what it looks like to put social “above the line”, treating it as the primary experience and not a supporting channel. Here, “above the line” means the social presence is the main stage, while TV is used mainly to accelerate adoption. If you want social to matter, design mass media as an on-ramp to a repeatable social habit, not as a separate campaign.

Early results the brand shared at the time

This family owned business shared the following success within 10 days of the TV commercials:

Gained 1,000 fans on Facebook
Gained 150 followers on Twitter

Moves to put social above the line

Make the channel the idea. If you lead with social, the creative has to feel native to how social behaves.
Anchor the message in something operationally true. “Always on” lands when the business actually is.
Give people a reason to follow, not just a reason to notice. Utility beats slogans for repeat behaviour.
Measure fast, then iterate. If the goal is followers and engagement, build feedback loops early.

A few fast answers before you act

What is different about this NORMS TV spot?

It is built around social media as the core creative idea, not as a last-second add-on call-to-action.

What is the main mechanism that makes it work?

TV is used as the reach layer, while the creative language is intentionally social-native, so the handoff to Facebook and Twitter feels natural.

Why does the “social never sleeps” line fit NORMS?

Because NORMS is positioned as open 24 hours a day, so the always-on idea matches the operating model instead of feeling like marketing theatre.

What is the business goal behind grounding a TV spot in social?

To turn awareness into ongoing follow behaviour, so the brand gains a direct channel for repeat visits, offers, and relationship building.

What is the most transferable takeaway?

If you want social to sit above the line, treat it as the product experience, then use mass media only to accelerate adoption.