How to unite the spirit of a nation
and accidentally go viral?
With 63 cities and provinces, Vietnam is one of the most diverse countries in South East Asia. With such diversity, background disparity is still an issue. People from rural regions feel no pride towards their hometown. Some feel the need to hide their accents. Media and opportunities favor top 3 big cities.
During Lunar New Year, the time for family reunion, Vietnam's national beer Bia Saigon is set to unite the biggest family: our country.
The brand launches a limited collection cans featuring the iconic cultures of each city in its own acronym name.
63 cans. For all 63 cities and provinces of Vietnam, because it is our differences that make our country unique.
The limited cans collection was designed by our talented colleagues at The Cult, me and my partner - Quynh Thy - developed the concept for the campaign. The idea was to featured different ways to celebrate Tet of different regions in Vietnam, but they all have one thing in common, having Bia Saigon as part of the celebration and altogether they make one big Viet Tet celebration.
The film is a journey through 6 cities / provinces of Vietnam: HCM City, Hanoi, Da Nang, Soc Trang, Kon Tum and Can Tho in which we introduced the design of the new cans in the very beginning and using the acronyms as a transitional device.
With the limited can collection at the core of the campaign, we developed the Thematic Key Visual to introduce the main collection and push the envelop by creating 63 contextual billboards for each of the provincial cans which was quite an ambitious decision, but we rolled with it.
The Thematic Key Visual was an array of provincial cans with different acronyms but arranged in an interesting way to work well both as a still image and with motion.
Each billboard features an iconic trait of that city on the packaging design, plus a unique new year wish crated upon the unmistakable acronym or the city's name. It reminds every Vietnamese that no matter where we come from, there is something to be proud about.
New year wish is a significant tradition in Lunar New Year. No more of the mundane ‘Happy New Year’.
Now every city has its own wish.
Every wish is one of a kind.
They put a new spirit into the names of our home that we have taken for granted. More than just wordplay on the cities’ acronyms, our copywriting talents crafted 63 wishes that celebrates the unique spirit of each city.
HCM
Ho Chi Minh city - Hừng Chí Mới [Fresh-spirited year]
For a city where people come to actualize dreams
HN
Ha Noi city - Hừng Nắng [Sunlit year]
for a city with dominantly gloomy weather
Since we had to create so many layouts, a system was much needed to keep the workflow as smooth as possible - imagine had to go back and fix 63 layouts 1 by 1, that would be disastrous process. The can design and the wish of each province was highlighted on the layout, we turned the acronyms into a pattern to give the layout a sense of texture and depth. With that system, we adapted for all the billboards and was able to do that smoothly and efficiently.
The billboards are strategically located near highways, main streets and airports where there's a large traffic of people travel to their hometowns during Tet holiday.
Provincial OOH at real locations, overlooking highways and main streets
Provincial OOH at domestic and international airports
And, to our surprise, one of the billboards went viral for the cleverly written wish of Hanoi, so lets all agree it went viral for the right reason :D.
Even though it had just launched for 2 months, the campaign brought back some impressive numbers.
175K IMPRESSIONS - 510K SHARE - 405K SOCIAL MENTION - 1 VIRAL Billboard.
That's how a national beer campaigns for 63 cities and provinces to become 1.
Creative team
ACD - Quynh Thy Nguyen & Huy-Vu Nguyen, Junior Art Director - Hung Huynh, Designer - Chau Ho, Content Editor - Sam Hue Tam