Sunlight, one of Vietnam's leaders in the home care category, was facing a PR crisis because of packaging change that was implemented on its 1-liter pack. The brand transitioned to a fully-recyclable plastic bottle, but had to sacrifice the bottle's handle due to manufacturing limitations with fully-recyclable plastic.

Apparently, consumers love the convenience of having a handle, more so that the product is rather heavy. Consumer took to social media, showing their disapproval for the new, handle-less, bottle.

The brief that was given the agency was rather simple: Shift the negative sentiment of consumers by highlighting the environmental benefits of the packaging change.

The creative idea revolved around emotional blackmail via guilt and "cuteness overload". By showcasing endangered species apologizing to Sunlight consumers with their huge doe eyes, managed to reverse the negative sentiment. More so, we the consumers feel guilty about complaining, to begin with.

The human insight that powers this campaign is rather simple -- emotional blackmail via guilt and "cuteness overload" is a potent way to reverse negative public sentiment.

Using cute endangered species to apologize for the inconvenience of consumers definitely reached the core of of our late 20s to early 30s target audience. The main takeaway that we wanted our target audience to absorb was this...

The inconvenience that you're experiencing will reduce plastic pollution in nearby waters, which in turn, will save the lives -- of cute and cuddly -- endangered animals.

Across film, social media ads, and live stunts, we created cute 3D endangered species, and made them apologize to Sunlight consumers and the general public for the inconvenience they're causing.

For a length of a quarter, we made the presence of these characters -- along with their heartwarming apologies -- visible and talked about across a wide array of pertinent media.

‘Sorry for your inconvenience" generated substantial results in terms of Sales Uplift, Brand Health Impact & Social Buzz Quality, after a full quarter of implementation:

Business Results:

26% uplift for the new fully-recyclable bottle (vs. L3M)

Brand impact:

Absolute Brand Lift: Up to 4.9% lift (vs Home Care Benchmark: 1.8%)

Social Media Results:

250,000+ Buzz Volume

150,000+ Unique user engagement

1/1 Sentiment score with no negative responses

For the first time ever, Sunlight landed in the top 3 of Vietnam's monthly social tracking