The Chocolate Bar That Came Back From the Dead
ROM alienated its customers to spring back to life
For the uninitiated, ROM is Romania’s national chocolate bar. It is rum-scented chocolate that can be found in any shape or size throughout the country. Being wrapped in the national flag, it screams nothing but pure nationalism.
It was, and now is, a hit in the Romanian market, but for a short period it was not doing so well. In the lines below, it will be clear that what ROM did in 2010 was pure ingenuity. This is how a national company reversed the increasing tastes for Western products in Hollywood-driven Romanian teenagers.
The Reaction of the Public
Back in 2010, ROM wasn’t performing that great. It was a time when multinational companies flooded the Romanian market and consumers were drooling over the new tastes of the likes of Milka, KitKat, and Snickers.
Romanians were disinterested, ROM was part of Romanian history, and if nothing had changed it would most probably have stayed that way. So what happened?
In the autumn of 2010, a new campaign was about to start, Americanizing the ROM chocolate bar. Shelves of ROM chocolate changed from blue, yellow, and red to stars with red and white stripes. “The all-new American ROM!” That’s when Romanians started paying attention. TV channels, forums, and Facebook groups were boiling over the new change. Interviews, questionnaires, and protests we arranged to shed light on the colonization of the all-Romanian candy bar.
The company knew exactly what it was doing. It managed to use Romanian patriotism to boost sales. They implemented the most effective trade barrier of all time. People were not only buying the rum-chocolaty goodness, they were defending it.
Fuel to the fire
The commercial alluded to American culture, so much so that the song “Born in the U.S.A.” was chanted throughout the TV spot. A whole website was built around the campaign where revolted customers could argue and complain about the American twists applied to the brand.
It was an advertisement while being entertaining at the same time. It then gave rise to free promotion. Everyone was talking about ROM chocolate.
The Results
“ROM became viral. The popularity of the brand rose by 79% .“— Mercury Research, Feb. 2011
“20 000 people joined the campaign in just four days, and the value of free media reached up to 300,000 Euros.” — Kandia-Dulce, parent company of ROM
It was a huge success. ROM is now bought by almost everyone who craves some chocolate. After the commercial, the parent company, Kandia-Dulce, expanded the lineup to keep the evolving tastes imported by the new brands that were entering the market.
The times were favorable
At the time, Romanians were losing their hope in their own country, the mentality shifted, and people were looking to the West. Living in America, Germany, and Britain was becoming a wish for many Romanians.
It fueled the ego of Romanians across the country and it managed to stir anger about a non-existent issue. The way that ROM chocolate revived the Romanian spirit and used it for market success is truly astonishing.
Could This Strategy Be Applied in the Future?
Maybe, maybe not. The campaign could be applied for dying local businesses but in different ways. It is necessary to keep in mind the time frame in which this marketing stunt was applied.
It profited from the Romanian’s emotional state. It applied satire to the old times that were plaguing many customers at that instant. The thing to take from this campaign would be its ability to engage the consumer in the publicity stunt itself. The marketing team integrated the platforms used by youngsters at the time while also capturing the attention of the old. On one side, sites like Facebook paved the way for teens to hear about the campaign, on the other, for older people to feel threatened by the change of the packaging.
Each country is different, and so each country has its different caveats. Use them and create a recipe for success.
