Lacta Chocolate And Love On A Train Seduce Greek Consumers

Lacta, a chocolate brand native to Greece, was bought by Kraft in the 1980’s. And today Lacta is the best-selling chocolate brand in Greece, thanks to the quality of its ingredients and marketing strategy. The brand's tagline says it all: "Lacta is the sweetest piece of your life."

Kraft recently crowdsourced a branded film, asking participants to create the storyline, choose the style of the piece and the actors, and cast it. Together with OgilvyOne Worldwide in Athens, the campaign, entitled "Love in Action" began with an invitation via television spots, to submit real love tales to be used in a short film: 1,307 stories later, the 27-minute branded entertainment debuted and is a hit.

A story of about a meeting on a train between two strangers -- a young soldier and a musician (tip of the hat to Alfred Hitchcock) -- won, hands down. Polls online let voters decide on screen tests, names of characters, and costumes.

11,500 people participated in pre-production, status reports posted on Kraft’s blog and Facebook during the ten-day shoot. A few lucky ones became extras. The finished film only contained three shots of Lacta. It was the stories that were the treat.

According to Panos Sambrakos, executive creative director, OgilvyOne Worldwide, Athens, "In a way this was our most valuable and popular content, since people loved reading the stories, or to share their own, even if it wasn't made into a movie. Some even did it in order to express their love to current or past lovers."

Originally planned to be webcast, “Love in Action” created so much buzz that MEGA Channel, Greece’s #1 TV station, ran it for free on Valentine’s Day. The stats were rewarding: 335,000 Greeks watched it on television equaling a 12 percent viewer share; 20,000 Facebook fans watched, and total views were upwards of 150,000. And the musical score is a hit.

“Love in Action” quantifiably boosted Lacta’s sagging sales, raising them by 0.6 percent in a warm 2009 winter difficult for chocolate. 2010 sales are yet to be determined.

This is OgilvyOne’s second foray into branded content for Lacta, follwoing last year's "Love at First Site," an interactive campaign where users chose specific storyline options to reach a happy ending. A new Lacta website is being designed and a third branded entertainment project is in development.

"By popular demand, we will continue the concept of making movies out of real love stories," said Sambrakos. "For the next one, I would like to go back to interactive storytelling. It's a great way to engage an active audience."

Take away? Crowdsourcing love and chocolate is a winning combo in any medium for any brand.