Family members are the people closest to us, but it’ easy to talk to them in a hurtful tone. FarEasTone wanted to encourage everyone: “Talk to your loved ones nicely.” We held a real event. We told 30 families we were going to take their family photo. Except for one lead participant, none of them knew this was actually an experiment, or that the lead participant was already in the studio having an interview with the director.

There were two challenges during the event execution:

1. To ask each lead participant to recall whether he/she had ever talked to their loved ones in a hard tone over the phone, to imitate that tone of voice and use it with a family member who was currently waiting for them, and sense their reaction over the real time hidden-camera monitor.

2. To capture the families reaction in an authentic, truthful way.

The event results were far beyond the lead participants’ expectations. It was only one thoughtless response, but it caused their loved ones pain. Every lead participant in the experiment realized that the way they talk and their tone of voice are very important.

We made 6 videos of these experiments and broadcast them across a variety of media. The campaign stirred a passionate online discussion and generated an astonishing number of click-throughs – over 300 million in one month. More importantly, Brand Appeal of FarEasTone grew 28% after the campaign.

This event held in November 2014, lasted 7 days in a studio in Taipei. We separated family members on the 1st floor from the lead participant on the 2nd floor. While families thought they were waiting for the lead participant to come, the lead participant was actually being interviewed by the moderator. “Have you ever spoken to your family in a harsh tone of voice over the phone?” He/she described their past experience, and told to imitate the tone of voice to answer their phones when the families called to ask his/her current location. After the phone, we showed them the reaction of his/her family through the real time hidden-camera-monitor.

We captured people’s reactions, facial expressions and non-verbal language, and found that careless answers over the phone really hurt people’s feelings, especially loved ones. Eventually people realized that the way they talk and their tone of voice were very important.

Among the 30 families, we chose six to turn their footage into films and broadcast them on Dec 18 2014 across a variety of media. After the films air soon attracted attention from both the press and the online world. The films were widely shared online in Taiwan and the Greater China:

- The total online viewership has reached more than 300 million in one month. (Source: YouTube, Youku, v.qq.com)

- The film was listed on the Top 4 of 2014 Q4 YouTube Ads Leaderboard Taiwan.

- In China, Youku.com and v.qq.com featured the campaign with all 6 films on their homepages on Jan 14, 2015.

The campaign significantly lifted FarEasTone’s brand performance scores, surpassing the set targets:

- Brand Appeal +28%

- Brand Difference +21%

- Brand Consideration +15%

(Source: Millward Brown)

The power of “Talking Nicely to Your Loved Ones” continues to produce positive impact throughout Taiwan society.