Something happens to you when there’s a lot of sales. You want to buy something. No, you NEED to buy something. Even if you don’t need the thing you’re buying. So how do you make people question their shopping-habits and start saving instead?

Our solution was to take the challenge head on by launching a competing product: Nothing™ – the product that’s designed to make it easier to put money in your savings account. Simply put, it’s a sexy box of air that you could purchase by saving money. Nothing™ was introduced with a big launch-campaign that attacked consumer-culture as much as it praised itself. And with a web-shop, pop-up shops, and retail placement, we made it possible for people to “buy” a physical box of Nothing™ (by saving money in the “Save”-app).

We shipped boxes to everyone who ordered online, and sold it in pop-up shops and in-store.

The campaign was rolled out in the middle of January and lasted for three weeks. It started with commercials for TV and online, big outdoor ads, print and display banners. After a few days of talking, we opened the web-shop, pop-up shop and started actually selling Nothing™.

The campaign was mostly centered around Oslo. All the big outdoor placements as well as the pop-up shops were located here, while the web-shop enabled anyone around the country to participate.

Daily downloads of the app tripled during the campaign period.

Use of one of the apps main features, “saving goals”, doubled during the campaign period.

For the first time in many years, Norway’s spending on consumer products decreased in the month of January. We don't know whether or not the campaign had anything to do with it, but we’re sure it didn’t hurt.