In 2012 Kibon, the biggest and most loved ice cream company in Brazil, decided to change its brand essence to “Share Happy”, based on the belief that happy moments are better when shared.

How could we call enough attention to the new concept and at the same time give it a profound meaning to truly connect to the consumer’s hearts in a context that included the product?

We decided to promote a social experiment to prove that human beings are generous and that we are happier when we make someone else happy too. But how easy is it to share something with someone we love? How about doing it with a total stranger?

We used a convenience store as our lab, paid for the first Popsicle, turned our hidden cameras on and waited. The first customer that decided to buy a Kibon product was told it had already been paid for by a stranger and was asked whether he or she would like to pay it forward. The result was that 97% of people bought an ice cream for someone they had never met before. And the “Chain of Happiness” was registered by hidden cameras.

The idea was to promote a chain of happiness that was relevant and powerful enough to generate a great PR effect, which brings endorsement and reach using our video to touch and inspire Brazilians to get in contact with their faith in human goodness, thus connecting them with Kibon’s beliefs and brand essence.

In order to guarantee fresh and useful news, first of all we prepared a white paper with information about the social experiment (2 weeks prior the launch of the video). The document presented the idea together with data about the behavior of consumers during the activity: how many decided to keep with the chain, who shared more happy: women or men, youngsters or old people, businessmen or moms? 2 exclusive interviews with the most important business vehicles were held 2 days before the launch of the video. A press release was sent to other publications of the same segment, while the white paper was released to human behavior press (newspapers, TV shows, magazines, websites, blogs) one day before the launch of the video on YouTube and Facebook. The video was launched when everyone was already talking about it and Kibon other Unilever fan pages helped sharing the news.

All it cost was the first popsicle to start up a chain that reached more than 80m people. As soon as the video hit the web, articles, newspapers, magazines and TV shows all over started talking about it. The video attracted $500,000 worth of earned media.

Kibon’s sales in convenience stores increased 700% in a 3 month period. And the results were reflected in our market share.

With absolutely no paid media, the video was shared by more than 400,000 users on Facebook and hit 10m views. Our single online video was even voted one of the best 3 campaigns in Brazil in 2012.