Though mouthwash is essential for oral hygiene, it is considered a non-essential product. This rings especially true for young consumers, as more than half of 18-24 year olds don't use it – a generation of potential consumers that doesn't seem to care about such a boring category.
It was no different for Listerine, and their communication became more traditional over time, creating an invisible barrier with this hard-to-connect with audience.
To overcome this challenge, we had to create a meaningful connection with young adults to address the importance of proper oral health.
It was clear from the very start that we needed to go beyond the oral health category's traditional advertising formats and messaging.
Games and gaming culture, with its community spirit and live, authentic content creation and consumption, emerged as the perfect brand territory.
So we leveled up the game experience to bring entertainment to this audience.
Instead of just making ads on gaming platforms, we added new dynamics to the gameplay of Brazil’s biggest virtual city.
We did so respecting the rules of the game-sphere and gamers by giving them not only a unique brand experience, but also an enhancement of their natural entertainment, with fun new dynamics for content creators to talk about in their owned and spontaneous language.
To properly embrace and respect gaming culture, the collaboration between Listerine and content creators was at the core of the Breathcalypse campaign to create a dynamic and engaging entertainment experience in the metaverse.
We transformed our strategy in a gameplay with two levels:
LEVEL #01: Entering the Game Community
We partnered with a squad of streamers and influencers that broadcast and shared Breathcalypse to major content game platforms.
LEVEL #02: Belonging to the Game Community
We encouraged all types of gamers – from influencers to genuine players – to broadcast their gameplays and join this active community and help create an organic success.
During Listerine's 30-day period in the virtual city of Complexo, a diverse range of content creators streamed Breathcalypse spontaneously on their platforms, including smaller players and big name gaming influencers like Nobru, the most popular in Brazil with over 50 million followers.
Listerine didn’t simply insert itself into the metaverse – we created a unique brand experience by turning the gameplay into media.
The results? Apocalyptic.
Over 170,000 Listerine products were used in the game, and with this much product a person could spend 5,900 years swishing Listerine twice a day. There were also 405,000 minutes streamed with brand and more than 50 million total views – a 'viewpocalypse' that resulted in $5 million in earned media. Our recommendations grew more than 5X the goal set for the campaign and people really did take Listerine off the screens, as we achieved 340% more online brand store sales.
