Crafting innovative experiences to connect with young audiences has been a powerful approach leveraged by brands over the past year. However, Bia Saigon, instead of just chasing trends, sought an experience that resonated with the desires and aspirations of young people.    

From research, the brand understood that young people are increasingly becoming more isolated due to their busy and tiring lives, which leaves them with no motivation to socialize with others. Deep down, they desire to socialize and connect with those around them and have a sense of community. In addition, this target group loves virtual experiences because they allow them to easily connect with others and can hype up their emotions to the fullest.

Create an epic virtual experience in the form of a social game. The game centered around hunting Saigon Beer's iconic dragons, offering players the chance to win epic prizes. Social media has been chosen as a crucial role in spreading a sense of community and uniting players who will stand by each other throughout the dragon-hunting journey.    

Our idea embarked on an epic journey through 3 phases    

AWARENESS PHASE: THE UNLEASH OF DRAGONS    

We leaked a short video capturing scenes of a virtual dragon flying out from iconic landmarks of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Hundreds of consumer inquiries arose about the origin and significance of this dragon, sparking discussions on social media. At the peak of curiosity, Bia Saigon stepped in to provide explanations. The dragon icons from Bia Saigon, symbolizing prosperity, seamlessly weaving prosperity into consumers' lives.    

ENGAGEMENT PHASE: THE ULTIMATE DRAGON HUNT BEGINS    

Bia Saigon launched "Dragon GEM,” igniting excitement among eager hunters. Prominent gaming influencers like Bray, Misthy, and Le Duong Bao Lam led a private event to unravel the thrill of the hunt and decoding the symbolism behind the dragons by themselves. To leverage the sense of community, Bia Saigon established a community for “Dragon GEM” hunters on Facebook. Here, Gaming KOLs and target audience can socialize and hint information to each other to hunt more dragons to multiply the prosperity of epic prizes together.    

CONNECTION PHASE: THE UNITY OF DRAGON HUNTERS    

Driven by the ambition to dominate the year of the Dragon, Bia Saigon wanted to stoke the fire of "Dragon GEM" to enthrall participants year-round. Strengthening the sense of community, hunters were allowed to team up in groups to fight Dragon Boss together at Bia Saigon’s outlets. Gaming KOLs bridge connections, rallying individuals across social media platforms for collective triumphs over Boss Dragons and coveted prizes.

This campaign allocated most of the media budget to be executed across on top mobile platforms (TikTok & Facebook) of young target consumers to capture the whole consumer journey from awareness to engagement to purchase at outlets.    

At the awareness phase, to ignite initial excitement surrounding the virtual dragon's CGI AR reveal, we established a multi-platform presence across Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. Leveraging the diverse capabilities of each platform, we employed TikTok and YouTube for audience expansion and brand awareness, while Facebook fostered the hype of social discussions, generating organic buzz and anticipation for the unveiling.    

Then, focusing on Gen Z's gaming passion point and content consumption behavior, we curated high-impact YouTube channels and content aligned with them. This approach maximized brand share of voice (SOV) and fostered deeper connections with our target audience.    

Come to the engagement phase, to create a social media phenomenon of social gameplay, we used Gaming KOLs as catalysts, prompting players to share their progress with teammates at key milestones, while user-generated content (UGC) incentives spurred organic content creation, amplifying reach and engagement without paid promotion.    

Capitalizing on the established social media influence of the game-based show "2D1N," we forged a strategic partnership to seamlessly promote our game and amplify its reach within their engaged audience.    

Finally, at the connection phase, to the loop and drive purchase on outlets, we integrated gameplay and social media content with in-store activation strategies. Utilizing Facebook and TikTok as guides, consumers could locate Bia Saigon outlets to participate in "dragon hunts" and ultimately convert their digital engagement into tangible brand interaction and purchase.

In a short period of 3 months, the campaign exceeded expectations with metrics as followed:    

1/ Brand Health Check    

Brand TOM  Brand Power  

Brand Sentiment  

Brand Equity    

2/ Quality Buzz Generated  

Social Buzz: 557.790 Buzz

Within just 3 months, my big comeback strikes impressive figures.  

Just in the first month, #BiaSaigon #DragonGem #SanRongNhanLoc on TikTok gathered 528M Views.    

Achieve 100% positive sentiment score for Bia Saigon during the campaign  

​3/ Sales result uplift:  

Market share performance:  

Increase +7.5pts vs. Tet 2023 in MT channel