There’s a universal belief that “You only know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” Nothing spoke truer to that experience than the simple-looking, pretzel sticks called PRETZ.

The snack has already been a part of Thai lives for so long that consumers have forgotten PRETZ name. The campaign allows consumers to experience the brand by not experiencing it. We decided to disrupt the norm of consumers’ routine when they walked through the snacks shelf, taking out the one thing they never got right about us: the name. This campaign is called THE UNNAMED BOX.

The campaign objective was to fix PRETZ issue about its brand recall. PRETZ has launched in Thai market for more than 48 years and has been part of Thais snacking moments. However, very few consumers could recall its brandname, PRETZ. They usually refered to PRETZ with some other nicknames; for example, savoury-stick, savoury Pocky, crispy stick, crispy Larb (the name of Northeastern Thai spicy salad which is one of the most favorite Pretz flavors), uncoated Pocky, etc. The problem of brand recall led to no conversation among consumers when it comes to snacks, then less preferred snacking choice. We realized brand recall directly relates to top-of-mind perception among consumers that of course affects buying decision. Therefore, we wanted to make consumers remember PRETZ brandname and be top-of-mind snack brand among Thai consumers.

Creating curiosity and conversations among Thai consumers with THE UNNAMED BOX:

PRETZ in special limited edition of packaging that looks exactly the same except for the label, where the actual wording of 'PRETZ' is missing.

In that blank, Thai consumers can filled-in different nicknames they have always called PRETZ by, sharing the identity they have created for us from the fond memories of snacking.

The target consumers of PRETZ are teens who have eaten the snacks since they were kids, but have forgotten about PRETZ recently. Their 2 main touchpoints of snacking are 1) Convenient Stores and 2) Snacking Hashtags.

Teens usually share and review their favorite snacks on social media with Thai hashtags of; #DeliciousMustEat and #ConvenientStoreReview. PRETZ has no existence in those conversation, and become less preferred snacking choice. With no brand recall, the main strategy is to stirred up online conversation by owning those 2 touchpoints.

The unique insight that came up during research is while consumers have forgotten the snacks official name, but each have created their own nicknames for PRETZ; for example, savoury-stick, uncoated Pocky, crispy Larb (the name of Northeastern Thai spicy salad which is the most favorite PRETZ flavors), etc. We leverage these insights to make teens acknowledge the missing bond they have with PRETZ.

THE UNNAMED BOX was distributed to convenient stores across Thailand and e-commerce. To drive them, we know that nothing could stirred up conversation for Thai people like curiosity.

The campaign was first launch by bombarding through online micro-influencers on Twitter who gave posted a photo of THE UNNAMED BOX and wrote down the nicknames they have previously given to PRETZ. This stirred up the consumers need to know and the need to visit stores to make their guesses of this unknown snacks.

Then, we rolled out the branded video in which PRETZ product manager from Japan earnestly speak about how consumers never called PRETZ by the name, but created nicknames for the snack.

This created a phenomenon of real consumers who started sharing the identity that they have given to PRETZ snacks by and the love they have for the snacks.

• Stories about the limited edition of PRETZ’s packaging were shared among online community. The name “PRETZ” was actually mentioned in many online media.

• The online video were shared crossed in many countries

• Consumer shared the nicknames they created & the fond experience they have from eating PRETZ in online media

• The campaign gained 300M of impressions and earned about 50M Baht of free media

• No.1 Twitter trend

• Most importantly, now 98% of PRETZ’s consumers finally remember the name of the product. Marking the brand’s identity into teens snacking moments once again.