Romania’s ROM chocolate bar launched in 1964 with the Romanian flag on its wrapper; had an ageing, nostalgic consumer base.In a category in which success means continuously attracting younger fans, ROM’s nationalistic values were a disadvantage. Young Romanians are disillusioned and cynical towards national values, and prefer 'cool' American brands like Snickers - which lead as favourite brand with 19%.How could ROM, a chocolate bar bearing the Romanian flag, gain appeal to youngsters with few national values?Our strategy was to trigger a public debate about national values among youngsters and thus gain favorability for ROM brand.

We challenged youngsters’ national Ego by replacing the Romanian flag on the package with the American one, and announcing it in the mass-media. We fostered and encouraged public debate triggered by the "American take-over". We closely monitored and responded to public reactions.After a few days, following massive patriotic resurgence, ignited and developed especially in the social media, we brought back the old ROM, as Romanian as ever. The patriotism debate raged in the media, finally consecrating ROM as authentic national icon.Most importantly, ROM ousted category leader Snickers and became Romanians' favourite chocolate bar – a 79% increase.

We set Rom as a national icon, by making people realize their own commitment to national values and symbols.The campaign had nation-wide scale and put national values on debate, so we needed to consider everybody who potentially had a voice: the general public, opinion leaders, journalists. We also managed internal and stakeholders communication.Our research showed that although Romanians tend to be negative and cynical, their patriotism returns and is voiced when challenged. We also used close monitoring of media and opinion leaders interested in debating national values and sensitive to the 'reactive patriotism' that underpinned our ground-breaking campaign.

We stirred, monitored and moderated the debates via a 24/7 'War Room' within the agency, where we gathered the comms disciplines managers and the client’s communication team.While putting the "American" Rom on shelves and announcing the change in mainstream media, all journalists, bloggers, opinion leaders received the 'American' Rom's official press info with the details of the new identity.We handled interviews, press inquires related to brand and company’s plans. We developed and monitored a live forum on the product website.After 7 days, we announced the return of the Romanian Rom.

The debate around the Romanian patriotism became a hot subject in the mainstream press. We were invited in Tv shows, press interviews to tell the story and interpret the social phenomenon.

We stayed in touch with journalists and bloggers explaining our strategy, assuring the accuracy of the information and emphasizing the positive outcomes of the campaign.

The campaign reached 67% of Romanians and generated €300,000 of free publicity. The 'patriotism' debate raged in the national media.Online response was phenomenal: in the first six days, ROM’s website had 75,000 unique visitors; Facebook fans rose by 300%; supporters launched petitions and even organised a flash-mob in the capital.Consumers created over 10 Facebook causes asking for the old ROM to be brought back, with the most popular reaching over 20000 users in one week, more than the cause for building national highways reached in one year!All brand image indicators have literally exploded, especially 'ROM is a brand for me', which more than doubled, with a 124% increase.ROM outperformed the market, with a 20% growth (compared to 8.2% category growth) in the most relevant channel, hypermarkets.Most importantly, ROM ousted Snickers to become Romanians’ most favourite chocolate bar, with a 79% increase of the indicator.

In the first seven days of the campaign we focused on communicating the new identity of the product and stirred the debate. People confronted us with questions regarding the meaning behind the change. We managed the conversation over the product website, social media and influential blogs.

When the 'snowball' grew big enough, we brought back the Romanian Rom. It was crucial that this would not come across as a moment of weakness from the company, but as a campaign meant to prove Romanians how much they love the authentic ROM, a Romanian symbol that succeeded to awaken their patriotism.After drawing the public into the debate we amplified the move: we took the debate into mainstream media, discussing and interpreting people’s reactions around national values in TV shows, press interviews, media meetings, in social media, involving opinion leaders, or even face to face with consumers.

Romania’s ROM chocolate bar, launched in 1964 with the Romanian flag on its package was losing ground to American brands like Snickers and Mars. In order to gain favourability ROM needed to shake young prospects out of their cynicism about national values. The real challenge was to moderate the conversations and monitor the public reactions, nation-wide, so that neither the brand, nor the national values to be harmed.We needed to maintain a constant dialog within both traditional and social media and to manage opinion leaders, taking into account that the subject was sensitive and juicy enough to derail badly.