Since its 1964 launch, ROM chocolate has been a symbol of Romanian pride; the 2010 American Rom campaign strengthened this position. After 1 year off air, ROM's market share and brand indicators were going down. The brand needed a turnaround, all within a minuscule budget.The brief was to create a campaign to rekindle people's national pride for December 1st - Romania's National Day - a date that meant little but another day off to our 25-35-year-old core target.Our idea was rooted in a stunning discovery: If one Googled 'Romanians are' in various languages, the suggested search predictions were all derogatory. Changing Romanians' image on Google was the perfect means for ROM to reach its objectives and re-awaken national pride.The campaign started with an online seeding of the insulting screenshots. Overnight, media exploded. 3 days later we came up with the solution: We redirected ROM's webpage to a landing page, www.romaniansaresmart.com, where people could generate positive searches in Google around the world.Further on, we partnered with the top 10 Romanian bloggers, each adopting a personalised search. Our aim was to stir interest in online media and then have key opinion leaders, influencers and regular folks join in the debate. Their contribution helped transition the debate into offline media, making Romanians’ negative image the hot topic of the day, while also bringing us free exposure.The campaign peaked when Romanian CNN, Realitatea TV, joined the campaign in a 1-day live broadcast TV marathon, for the National Day.

In order to stir controversy we started with a seeding campaign among famous bloggers with the insulting screenshots. 3 days later we communicated the solution to local, international and Diaspora media and associations: we redirected ROM's webpage to a landing page, www.romaniansaresmart.com, where people could generate positive searches in Google pages around the world. With a fraction of a traditional media campaign budget, we decided to put all our money in Google AdWords and Search Engine Optimisation.

To generate further positive content we continued with testimonials from personalities from various domains. Also, famous local popstar, CRBL, composed a dedicated song for the cause and performed it live on TV during a December 1st all day marathon powered by ROM. 1 month into the campaign, search predictions now showed Romanians are smart and made Romania the first country to have ever changed its image online via a 1 month, nation-wide effort.

The campaign was a hit in national and international offline and online media. In one month 664,332 searches were generated via ROM's website.

600 national and international online posts with tens of thousands of comments contributed positive content on Romanians, increasing tenfold the number of search results in Google (from 200,000 to about 3,000,000).

More than 30 key opinion leaders joined in and offered support to ROM’s cause via video testimonials that were aired on Realitatea TV, the local CNN, which had volunteered its support from the early onset of the campaign.With a total media investment under €10,000, ROM's campaign earned 577,000 euro worth of free offline media and €487,320 of online media, touching 2,500,000 people. This brought ROM a 20% boost in sale and an 8% rise in market share vs. 2010.In the end we managed to change Romanians' image on the Internet, proving the power of Google as viral medium.