Content Champions: closeup (Philippines)

closeup is a toothpaste brand under Unilever which was first launched in 1967 in the United States. It became available worldwide since 2003, and is also available in Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, and more. Unilever also houses hundreds of other brands, including Breeze, Dove, Lady’s Choice, Lifebuoy, Selecta and others.  

Content Champions is a segment during MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's Content360 conference in the Philippines in which we highlight brands who have made significant impact in the content marketing space through their campaigns. This campaign was shortlisted for Marketing Events Awards 2024 and chosen for coverage by the editorial team at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.  

Brand: closeup Philippines
Campaign: "Iconic— The Closeness Anthem"

Challenge 

Although closeup is an established brand in the Philippines, it faces a challenge in capturing the interest of Filipino Gen Zs, who usually go with whichever brand their parents used to bring home. In efforts to grow its presence in The Philippines, closeup decided to showcase its promise of fresh breaths and aimed to help young adults get closer to their love interests.

Strategy  

closeup planned to showcase its dual benefit of levelled up freshness and kilig (a joy and excitement felt when seeing or living out a romantic moment), while highlighting its unique ingredient of antibacterial Zinc.  

Filipinos are hungry for kilig, fuelled by popular romantic-comedy movies and dramas, but many lack courage to get closer. closeup leveraged this and aimed to show that its fresh breath benefit can give them the confidence to get closer and have a kilig moment with the person they feel attracted to. It created the Closeness Anthem— three main executions designed to incite kilig and strengthen awareness for closeup's fresh breath benefit. “The Closeness Anthem” blended its functional message with iconic kilig elements that appealed to Filipinos to ensure that it would make its mark in Filipino audiences.  

Execution 

Together with lead creative agency MullenLowe TREYNA and media agency Mindshare Philippines, the campaign was executed through a reimagined version of classic Filipino love song "Closer You & I", as well as a short rom-com film featuring the popular actors Donny Pangilinan and Belle Mariano— directed by Gen-Z romcom storyteller Antoinette Jadaone. 

The team also set up a stunt that allowed audiences to experience their own elevator rom-com moment in real life, just like a kilig drama. To make it widespread, the elements of the campaign was translated into different content, and spread out across social media, music platforms, online content creators, BTL and OOH platforms.  

The Closeness Anthem started with the reimagining of the classic song "Closer You & I". Asides from turning the song as into a pop harana (serenade), closeup collaborated with Filipino singer Adie to weave in the toothpaste’s benefits of an amazing smile, and how it can fan the flames of attraction and closeness. The reimagined song was launched like a lead single and was released on Spotify & Apple Music. It was also performed live by Adie on variety show ASAP, Wish 107.5 and on Billboard Soundwave. 

The soundtrack was then brought to life with the creation of a short rom-com film which showcased a funny but kilig story set in an elevator where the leads meet, grow attracted to one another, and one day— dared to get closer. The film was also treated as a film premiere, with movie posters created by artist Justin Besana. Audiences were also teased with social media content from the film’s leads, Donny Pangilinan and Belle Mariano. 

closeup also launched a live watch party for the short film and simultaneously broadcasted it in a Facebook livestream before releasing it on Youtube. To support these efforts and reach more Gen Z audiences, it partnered with Rec-Create Studios and Antoinette Jadaone’s ‘Ang Walang Kwentang Podcast’ (The Podcast with No Sense) to create content about how to get closer and how fresh breath helps in making a good impression. In reaction to the short film and the song, audiences became inspired to create memes, reaction videos and comments expressing their kilig and how they want to experience a romcom moment like the one in the film. 

Check out the other winners here.