Situation:

In Germany, the youth were among those who suffered most from the pandemic’s restrictions: with homeschooling, contact restrictions and long periods under lockdown, teenage life was basically cancelled. Their needs were overlooked and the impact on a whole generation’s mental health was underestimated. Their missed experiences were never addressed in public.

Brief & Objective:

As a grocer, PENNY has always been open to everyone during the pandemic. Being close to our customers’ lives, we’ve experienced first-hand how teenagers were among those who suffered most from the restrictions. At Christmas, PENNY not only provides its customers with food, but also takes care of their emotional and social needs. How can we give teenagers the attention they deserve in these times?

A Christmas wish list turns into the plea of a generation. In our film, a teenager asks his mother what she wants for Christmas. Her unusual answer reveals what an entire generation has been missing for two years: "I just wish you'd get your youth back” along with all the ups and downs of growing up.

At Christmas we tend to the social needs of our customers. We analyzed what was on our community’s mind: Teenagers spoke out on social media, how they feel during the pandemic. They became the forgotten generation – and nobody wanted to listen. This took a toll on teenagers and their parents. Mothers are one of the core target audiences of PENNY, since they are mostly responsible for the household shopping. With the campaign we wanted to engage with our core target audience as well as the next generation of household shoppers – young people between 16-24 years. Both you can find on social media and the lost youth resulting of the pandemic was one of the main topics for both. We wanted to make the lost generation heard and put this topic on the social agenda to spark a discussion not only on social media, but across Germany.

To kick off the campaign we launched different trailers on social media with major cliffhangers to prepare the community for the big launch of our film. We raised awareness before the film even dropped. As the film was launched, we also introduced our campaign website, where young people could win missed experiences like trips, parties, and even a job at PENNY with a prepaid flat. With that approach we wanted to translate the film into the reality of our customers and enable them to catch up on some things, they have missed during two years of corona.

This is one of the biggest campaigns of the year for PENNY with a production and media budget of more than 1 mill. Euro. The campaign aired between the 11.11.2021 – 06.01.2022 on social media (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram) and in cinemas.

We’ve reached more than 20 mill. people with an organic reach of 50 %. We generated more than 100 press reviews and more than 25 mill. euro in earned media. We have no results in sales, since it was solely an image campaign. Our goal to spark a conversation about the lost youth of a generation totally succeeded and PENNY as well was not the talk of town, but the talk of the nation.