Life changed suddenly for the whole world when COVID-19 arrived. Children and adolescents became immersed in a new reality which has had a huge impact on their lives.According to a research by /TBWA Singapore, people’s plans have been put on pause across Asia, including Vietnam. Many Vietnamese people's plans and passions must be paused, delayed, or cancelled due to the prolonged Covid-19 situations in the past 2 years.COVID-19 was an opportunity to reflect, reevaluate, and reimagine the ways we live our lives. And there has never been a better time to push “celebrate living” than when the new normal reaches. It’s exactly the time to press play and move on with incomplete plans, dreams, or passions.With the vision of “changing the way people feel about insurance”, FWD’s philosophy is that insurance should be a source of empowerment. So, FWD’s brand promise is “Celebrate living” – highlighting the fact that if anything happens, have the confidence that FWD got your back. The ambitions of this PR campaign are to increase FWD’ brand awareness, enhance the key brand attributes that drive consideration (different, innovative, relevant) at the same time, own and demonstrate the notion and meaning of “Celebrate living”. The campaign was expected to spread the key message through diverse PR formats, in which music event becomes an important platform as it can embody the creative, authentic, and community-oriented features of FWD brand.

The campaign leveraged the “play” symbol in FWD’s brand logo which demonstrated itself as a platform that has the versatility and strength to adapt as well as stay relevant no matter where and when it’s “pressed”. This symbol was also adapted into familiar objects in daily life to increase the brand association with audiences. During the execution of this campaign, the “play” symbol was made ubiquitous in all social media platforms and advertising materials of the company to enhance the coverage of “It’s time to press play” theme.The campaign quickly became recognisable with the “play” symbol crept into Vietnamese life everywhere (one highlight should be Vietnamese’s most popular traditional hat: “nón lá” – cone hat) and becomes a living identity through digital banner ads on popular websites, bumper ads on YouTube and taxi ads. The campaign was initially launched with a wave of news and social posts on top-tier media sites, spreading the stories of real-life heroes across Asia. Different engaging activities were conducted on social media including Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. These were effective in creating a hype around the event and generating high level of brand association.

A star-studded music concert with the theme “It’s time to Press Play” was also taken place during this time. 9 popular celebrities gathered in this event, each shared their “press play” moments and experiences to millions of audiences watching online and offline. The message was subtly embedded in every element of the event, from the stage design to visual performances and even music performed by artists. There was intricate attention to details to highlight the theme of “It’s time to Press Play” throughout this whole event.To keep the audiences engaged throughout the event, gamification was included in the form of an interactive quiz on fanpage FWD Vietnam before and during the livestream of the event. These quizzes not only enhanced the experience for online audiences but also aimed at getting people to know about the message “It’s time to press play”.

The campaign was successful on multiple fronts, winning all the hearts of media and the public. With a star-studded event (attracted over 15.000 onsite and over 1.8 million online audiences), hundreds of posts on social media and 464 media coverage, the campaign earned:- 129,926 million reaches- 6 million social interactions- 106 million views- 335,677 clicks on “It’s time to press play”-related content- 127,995 mentions about the campaign- Additional 9,783 followers on Facebook and TikTok in just 2 monthsThe campaign also helped to maintain FWD’s 1st position on 3 key important brand attributes - different, innovative, relevant (according to research by Blackbox). FWD Vietnam’s brand awareness also rose from 39 to 46 (7 points) – a record-breaking achievement of a young brand as FWD Vietnam. The event was ranked Top 2 in the most outstanding events on social media in Vietnam in November 2022. Most important of all, the campaign gained positive support from people across Vietnam for the meaningful message “It’s time to Press Play”, pushing them to fulfill their incomplete plans, passions, or dreams.