How to introduce a tiny a banal corn fluff to an entire country, in a memorable way? How to make people listen and react? Our brand is called GUSTO PUFULETI (pufuleti means corn snacks), but people didn’t know the brand by name. Thus our challenge was to turn ‘Mr. Nobody’ into a nationwide famous somebody within just 6 months.

Searching for the right strategy, we overlapped the brand truth (GUSTO PUFULETI gives you a stress-free moment, since they are easy and simple) and the consumer truth (according to European studies, Romanians are among the unhappiest, most pessimistic people).

The result was a very bold campaign that took GUSTO PUFULETI above its category and turned it into a true hero: GUSTO PUFULETI took on the great mission to bring indestructible optimism in people’s lives, to ‘cure’ them of depression and make them smile in times of crisis! We created an integrated campaign, including BTL, online, innovative media projects, and all components being led by the fourth one - PR. From a huge controversy, to insure great buzz everywhere, to a big revealing and then to militating for optimism through impactful tactics, not only did we achieve our goals, but we even overcame them!

Teasing (1 week): - Appearance in corn fields near Baicoi of 3 giant UFO-like smiling faces (45 m in diameter each)! Subject created huge buzz all over the country (TV channels, YouTube, radio shows, written press, blogs, with the complicity of the city Mayor and some local citizens). Revealing (1 day): - Huge march of protesters from Baicoi (‘creators’ of the smiling faces) militating for fun and optimism in front of public authorities that bring bad news.

Core campaign (5 months): - Big tactics to help people get optimistic inspiration: dedicated blog, page on Facebook, editorial projects with paparazzi publications, funny tips on big online forums.

- organising OPTIMISM, an unconventional event bringing together the most fascinating opinion leader thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives about optimism.- Guinness World Record owner, cartoonist Stefan Popa Popas developed 18 cartoons portraying the dog on the bag (GUS) in hilarious situations. Consecutively published on millions of GUSTO bags, they made people smile from the moment they bought the product.

Over 15,000,000 people (2/3 of Romania’s population!) have heard of GUSTO PUFULETI and their campaign for optimism - more than 4 times our objective.Media coverage: over 200 press clippings, 70 online, 45 minutes on TV, 22 minutes on radio - an impressive result for Romania!

The YouTube teaser video (the smiling faces) got over 15,000 views in 4 days.

Over 600 'friends' on FACEBOOK in the first month.Tens of bloggers writing about GUSTO.

Almost 20,000,000 bags with Mr. Popa’s cartoons sold in just 5 weeks.Google Search for 'optimism' in Romania increased from 39 to 100 on a scale from 0 to 100 during our campaign (Google Insights).GUSTO sales grew with 10% as a result of the campaign, while the market decreased by 40%!

The PR campaign received Golden Award for Excellence for 'Best PR campaign' at Romanian PR Award 2009 (the national PR competition).