Chinese consumers peeling banana ice cream

Nestlé Ice Cream and Social@Ogilvy, a cross-discipline team of social experts from OgilvyOne and Ogilvy Public Relations Beijing, have launched a fun and exciting digital campaign to promote BenNaNa, a peelable, banana-shaped ice cream, in mainland China.

The playful two-part campaign consists of a microsite based on the kid-friendly theme of a magical island conceptualized and created by OgilvyOne. The second part is a hugely popular corporate Sina Weibo account complete with bespoke funny videos created and managed by Ogilvy PR that has seen close to three million users share posts or upload their own BenNaNa pictures.

BenNaNa Ice Cream is an unusual ice cream stick that is eaten just like a real banana. The

playful eating experience starts when you take a bite from the top of the peelable jelly shell,

which you then roll down like a banana skin to reveal a delicious ice cream core.

Ogilvy PR conceptualized and manages Nestlé BenNaNa’s Sina Weibo account which

entertains visitors with amusing stories of BenNaNa’s magical peelability and invites them to

share their own BenNaNa stories through posts and pictures. Popular Sina Weibo hashtags

such as #LegendaryNestléBenNaNa and #EatingABananaWithoutSpittingOutTheSkin

spread the joy of peeling and eating a BenNaNa Ice Cream and encourages users to share

their own jokes and experiences.

“The early buzz generated from Social@Ogilvy’s Nestlé BenNaNa digital campaign has

been phenomenal! We’re thrilled with the playful magical island concept, performance and

collaboration among agencies, and the Weibo results have already led to soaring sales in

mainland China. These really laid the groundwork and generated lots of excitement ahead

of the microsite launch,” said Olivier Jakubowicz, Business and Brand Development

Manager at Nestlé Ice Cream Business Unit.

Colleen Cheng, Senior Vice President and National Group Director, Corporate Marketing,

Ogilvy PR Beijing, said, “With the overwhelming amount of crazy and playful content that

is streaming in everyday from BenNaNa Weibo fans, our team has been having too much

fun working on this microblog! Now after only a few weeks of social media engagement,

Nestlé has effectively recruited more than three million happy and active online brand

ambassadors that are helping us to spread the word about the most fun snack we’ve seen in

ages!”

In addition to the social media promotion, OgilvyOne’s media agency partner Mindshare

tapped social networking giant QQ as the digital platform that would host the interactive

microsite. Set against a fun tropical island backdrop full of monkeys, the microsite is packed

with animated BenNaNa Ice Cream games that encourage netizens to earn QQ’s virtual

currency, learn magic tricks and vote to win prizes.

“The peelable, edible skin is the most exciting part of BenNaNa Ice Cream so this was our

key selling point. To highlight this unique eating experience, we created a colorful and

whimsical theme for the microsite that piques your curiosity and is massively interactive. The

result is an entire digital campaign of light-hearted fun that appeals to the young and the

young at heart,” said Lily Tung, Managing Director of OgilvyOne Beijing.

Credits – Executive Creative Director: Darren Crawforth. Creative Director: Funky Cao. Art Director: Anthony Sun. Copywriter: Allen Feng. Creatives: Huanyue Liu, Avvy Jiang, Spring Lv, Ice Liang. PR Team: Colleen Cheng, Susan Yin, Elsa Liu, Celine Li, Lily Zeng.