In Bulgaria for several years now the free culture has been speeding up and has been finding more and more supporters. Freedom to share, remix and above all to create is an indescribable fun which wants to be shared. It is a great pleasure for me to add another brick in the building of Creative Commons.

The work on Georgi and the Butterflies is among the few projects on which I have raged with 100% pleasure. When your soul and mind are free from any unnecessary information and the Assignor knows what it is like to create something for an audience from 5 to 105 years old, then everything happens for several days, with minimal number of clicks of the mouse.

In 2002 a company with traditions in production of potato and corn chips - Intersnack, popular with its world-known brand Chio, purchased the production and the local brand Chipi. Owning about 30% from the salty snacks market and over 80% of the chips segment is more than a serious market achievement. At first look it seems wonderful, but considering 2 brands of similar targeting - men and women between 20 and 30 years of age, having a dynamic lifestyle with consumer habits “on the go”, it is almost impossible to achieve a bigger market share. There is always a sufficient quantity of solutions! A main move in the repositioning of the Chipi Chips brand was below the line activity with revolutionary for its time approach in the FMCG market, namely - instant monetary wins (money in-packs). With this “bomb” we achieved 75% sale growth as compared to the previous year and substantial growth in distribution. Along with this move we started working on a new package design, new logo and new target audience, with which later we entered in focus groups. We wanted to attract the family audience - 30 - 40 years old and those who love Bulgarian cuisine and traditions. In Bulgaria, the top of mind association for natural clean potatoes is restricted to roadside merchants who stalk on the mountain roads in the autumn.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned from focus groups and group discussions is that it’s not healthy to trust the results to a maximum extent. The market research throws light, but should not be the basis of creativity. It is extremely important how the research materials were prepared (designs, storyboards, questionnaires, etc.), but the most important thing is the researcher! He is the one who can protect you from slipping when working with indecisive respondents, who are supposed to direct your decision for a long-term strategy! In the end the research extract should reveal to you why and how an idea will work when it is bold, risky or innovative.

Here’s how the prototype of our idea looked like…

After perfect focus groups we had the key to success…

Later on we chose location for its implementation…

For 2 days we shot it…

…and all the time we had so much fun.

The final result of the activity looks like that. The campaign for the re-launch of the Chipi Chips brand started at the end of 2004, three months later the sales were 50% up as compared to the previous year, with no negative effect on the sales of Chio Chips. Out of 2 brands which were cannibalized at the end of the undertaking we had an overall growth of the segment by +21,0% in terms of volume and +18,2% in terms of value YTD 2004 vs. 2003 (ACNielsen RI ON’04).

You go to the cinema, buy a ticket, something to drink, snacks and sit comfortably so that the only pre-movie ad could hit you. Pleasant job, with enough ground for creative work - TV spot, posters, cinema programs, branding of all movies released on DVD - what more could you possibly want? From one question mark we created the whole communication platform. All the time, while working on this project, there was this other question: “Movies, big cinema halls… but there are so many video stores and isn’t it more pleasant to watch the movie at home?”

It is this question exactly that made us buy thousands of boxes of VHS cassettes and DVD and search for a new communication channel. It’s nice to use exclusively the big cinema halls, but with the hundreds of video stores the world became different. The question mark obtained a character compared to the movie genres.

The most interesting thing to me was how the new communication channel turned into a distribution one!

Yellow or golden? They’re both pretty much the same to me, but when it comes to brands competing in one and the same branch, the matter is more of a “Coca-Cola or Pepsi?” kind. During the last two years quite many players entered the business directories and guides field. At present the leader in the market are Yellow pages and Golden pages, as the latter are by default placed in a slight image shadow. I’ve known the first ones’ representative for years and he’s among the few friends of mine who like to work at night like me. Several months ago we chatted about the ability to lead or to follow the way. An infinite philosophic theme that you can dwell upon for hours over a nice coffee and aromatic tobacco with utmost pleasure. The history of telephone directories with yellow pages started at the time of the most renowned detective of all times and will soon celebrate its 130^th jubilee. Yes, my thought brought me right there, to the recesses of the so called ME2 brands, to my former experience with such cases and positioning based on traditions. “Imitate or Innovate?” is one of my favourite cliches in marketing, which I decided to clean from the dust for this project and add some character to this specific search in the yellow-golden guides.

Here’s how the same-year-born Yellow pages and Sherlock Holmes were joined together on one cover, and friends from Ashley & Holmes supported the concept in giving it a regional weight. The main communication channel and information carrier in this case are the directories themselves, and the big towns’ monuments, in which they are distributed, added to it the weight and tradition that are usually lost in the leading position competition.

I am convinced that within 5 years this race and business will be mainly online and paper will be substituted with powerful internet portals and cutting edge user experience.

Positioning and communicating a brand in a market of young and dynamic people is not an easy job especially when the client’s portfolio includes brands like Heineken, Amstel, Murphy’s and 4-5 more local brands. On top of this you add the portfolios of the two other strongest world beer leaders, some alcoholic mixed drinks as well as a whole additional universe of all cool brands popular among the young status seekers and then you get a good idea about the task. One of the toughest details was that for many years this beer was known under the name Zagorka Gold to one generation, and now the company wanted to bring up only Gold for people like me. The umbrella brand Zagorka, the elder brother Heineken and the Brewinvest corporation had to keep a low profile, an approach that has been used by many customers before. And so… to summarize… Local Premium segment representing 1.5% of the total market volume and 3.6% of the market value… approximately 700,000 people target market, 25 to 30 years old, men and women, progressive and expressive. The brand to them needed to have the emotional appeal of … “it demonstrates my personal sophistication, status, success and refined style” but the naked truth was closer to “am I cool enough to drink Zagorka Gold, instead of some of the world brands from the Premium segment (Stella Artois, Grolsh, Carlsberg, Beck’s, Tuborg, Corona etc.)”

I’ve always thought that the key to the successful advertisement is in the ability to get into your target market’s skin, but at this time I was drinking really cheap liquor on the streets and the brands closest to my heart included Volcom and Burton, and I couldn’t care less about what kind of beer I was drinking as long as it was cold enough. While seeking sufficiently emotional meaning combined with a sexy and fashionable taste we concluded that we needed people with unique charisma who would be the opinion leaders in their communities. A fashion model from the cover of a lifestyle magazine, chocolates and alcoholic beverages promoter, a face control person from a popular night club and a Mig-29 pilot… 4 people, 4 print layouts, 4 outdoor layouts… Go 4 Gold!

Looking at where the brand is several years later… back to the well known Zagorka Gold name, in a new bottle and with a new design and a new taste… I wonder how healthy it is and is it an easy task to spin the kitchen for a new round?