M&C Saatchi Chilanga created one of the most successful advertising campaigns in the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The work prepared by the agency to promote the ‘Hot Sale 2020’, a commercial event organized by the Mexican Association of Online Sales (AMVO) and which took place at the end of May, is one of the 11 creative pieces highlighted by the consultancy global Scopen as an example of strategies that knew how to adapt to the crisis and turned it into an opportunity to position their brand.
“We made a selection of representative campaigns in 11 different countries, which would have reached a lot of people, which had a certain impact on the market and with very good results that reflected their effectiveness,” explains César Vacchiano, President and CEO of Scopen.
“The one in Mexico, from M&C Saatchi, was very interesting because in a country where everything digital is still slow, they bet on showing consumers the advantages of buying digitally, making their consumption levels rise,” he adds.
‘Click and come back’ is the name of the campaign that broke records. According to Manolo Techera, creative director of the advertising agency, the initiative increased the number of admissions to the Hot Sale page by 103% compared to 2019, which means that 12.4 million Mexicans bought at the commercial event.
Thanks to the advertising strategy, sales increased 158% compared to last year, generating 20.1 million pesos between May 22 and June 1, 2020. In fact, 88% of the brands participating in the event exceeded or equaled their business goals.
“These results considerably exceeded those of 2019, which had been the year the event broke all records,” says Techera.
Although, during 2020 the value of electronic commerce grew 81% due to the change in user behavior after mandatory isolation, the reality is that online purchases have registered a constant rise for four years.
“Now we all talk about e-commerce, but we forget that Mexico has been the Latin American country with the highest growth in this segment since 2017. In 2019 we were the first in the world ”, says Pierre Blaise, CEO of AMVO. “And it is probable that in three years we will surpass Brazil in value, this is very important because we will be above the country that has maintained its leadership. Mexico will continue with an upward trend ”.
Express campaign
The ‘Click and Come Back’ campaign was created in 20 days. The agency had never done such a great job in such a short time, says the creative director, but the arrival of COVID-19 forced them. At the beginning of the year, the plan was to replicate a bit the formula of the 2019 initiative, which obtained a silver metal at the Effie Awards Mexico for its effectiveness. However, the health situation prevented them from filming abroad so they had to build a new idea from scratch.
“Everything fell apart,” recalls Techera. “It was starting to see how to resolve the issue. We did not want to be another campaign made with image banks, so we resorted to the proposal with which we won the brand’s pitch in 2019 and we resolved it within the same team ”. The campaign was 100% animated.
For Pierre Blaise, CEO of AMVO, co-creating this initiative represented a challenge precisely because of the execution, but also because of the environment in which the Mexican consumer was at that time. He explains that just a few weeks had passed since the contingency was declared in the country, so there was a lot of uncertainty in the market, in addition to the fact that people were watching their expenses.
“We had to find the right tone in the communication, we did not want to give the perception that we were doing this to sell more or to take advantage,” says Blaise. He even remembers that there were those who recommended that he suspend the commercial event. “But we made the decision to keep the Hot Sale.”
The message around the campaign tried to convey understanding to the consumer and help companies that were also suffering from the first strategists of COVID-19. Faced with the crisis, the Mexican was given the opportunity to access discounts and save to endure complex months, while companies were allowed to communicate and sell.
Successful team
‘Click and come back’ was the first campaign carried out by the M&C Saatchi advertising agency since the health contingency began. “I remember that we had our first meeting on March 15 and the pandemic hit us,” says Manuel Techera.
The work experience was rare, but nothing extraordinary, because in the creative firm they were used to working remotely. Even a few weeks before everyone went home, they did a drill to find out what the activities would be like during the home office. In the AMVO, remote work is the daily bread, so this was not an impediment to develop the campaign.
From Scopen they highlight the teamwork between the agency and the advertiser. Vacchiano says that this was a common characteristic of all the campaigns that are part of the list, and assures that without having a close collaboration it is impossible to survive in moments of crisis.
For now, the M&C Saatchi Chilanga team and the AMVO team are already working on the campaign for the ‘Hot Sale 2021’.
“We continue with the same objective of making the advantages of buying online visible and generating trust in people. But now, as e-commerce has already become a daily thing, we want to do something more optimistic and play a lot with Mexican values and cultural references ”, says Pierre Blaise
The new production will hit the market in May.
