Ariel detergent has lost loyalty and, subsequently, market share in recent years. The Ariel 35th Anniversary needed to present the brand in an engaging light to regain loyalty among users who did not use Ariel for every wash. Specified marketing goals demanded 65% aided advertising awareness over a quick, eight week period.

Exclusive usage, a loyalty measure, increased by 48%, while the brand lead as most used by 24%. The Anniversary campaign achieved 67% advertising awareness after eight weeks, exceeding the 65% objective. The mini-telenovelas achieved 35% recall with Mexican housewives after week six.

Prompted by their never-before-imagined opportunity to be bigger than life on TV, women flooded the contest with entries at record numbers. Six winning stories were filmed as two-minute mini-telenovelas starring well-known actors. Branded, national television trailers publicised the broadcasts and real TV stars. The winning films aired in a commercial pod during the first break of Mexico’s most watched telenovela. Each story was branded within the Ariel 35th Anniversary celebration.

What campaign could be more integrated than one where the consumer’s real life drama is integrated into the media contact? Telenovelas are more than mere television; the dramas are watched by millions, holding special attraction for women that value them as a much-needed break from their busy, daily routines. The plan leveraged the media insight across many aspects of targets’ lives for a unique harmony of passion and media interaction, wherein consumers created the branded content.

The plan aimed to rejuvenate the tradition and history of Ariel among Mexican housewives with one of their greatest passions: telenovela soap operas. While watching these incredibly popular programmes, they relate the onscreen drama with the drama in the lives of their own family. Media contact was created to grant viewers great wish fulfillment, giving housewives the opportunity to see their own personal dramas unfold onscreen with a televised competition. All housewives had to do was submit their own “Ariel Soap Opera”, a true story in which Ariel emerges as the hero.