France is known to be much stricter in terms of regulations around Branded Entertainment compared to other countries in Europe and around the world. French TV channels don’t allow brands to promote outside of allocating advertising slots. The Internet remains the freest place to introduce this type of communication, even though it is increasingly regulated and French Internet users are extremely resistant to any unjustified exposure to brands.

First of all, we introduced Arnaud’s experience to bloggers so that they could put themselves into the position of Arnaud’s Facebook friends (Arnaud had already added them on Facebook). So these were the first people to talk about the campaign, confirming its authenticity. There was an immediate buzz online. People could choose between finding out as much as possible about Arnaud’s adventure via the campaign website, and following the videos over time on their timeline by liking the Nescafé France Facebook page. Then we launched 3 TV films talking about the different aspects of Arnaud’s adventure to reach out to as many people as possible, including Nescafé’s regular customers who don’t use the Internet as much.

2 weeks after Arnaud’s adventure went online, we can’t yet measure results in terms of sales. However the TV advertising campaign has already seen 3 undeniable successes:

. Statistics that are generally above the norm: from a quantitative point of view (3.17 million views on YouTube in under 15 days) as well as from a qualitative point of view (2 minutes 52 seconds viewed per video on average, 72% of videos viewed in full and 12% of users watching 100% of the videos (more than 2 hours of content).

. The brand is getting back in touch with its traditional fans, and also reaching out to a new generation: the Nescafé France Facebook page has seen a rise of over 38%, talking to an incredibly varied audience (65% women, 35% men, 15% aged under 18, 51% aged between 18 and 34, 34% aged 35 and over).

. By launching a universal, modern topic of conversation, Nescafé has created a huge discussion in France (extensive media coverage encompassing a wide range of fields) leaving its competitors lagging behind and making its current and future consumers proud.