Manila, Philippines – Milk tea brand CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice has a new campaign up its sleeve–but instead of a typical light and jolly ad, it features a much rather candid and hilarious ad dedicated to those who want to alleviate their stress in the most literal way possible. The solution? Literally stab a huge cup to vent out all of those pent-up emotions.
Conceptualised alongside local creative agency GIGIL, the new tongue-in-cheek commercial features veteran journalist Ces Drilon, also known for the meme ‘Stress Drilon’, facing a multitude of everyday woes. Whether it was hilariously sipping a salty coffee drink or getting splashed by a muddy car on a rainy commute, all of these situations led up to her using said cup activation to vent out her emotions–in a rather profanity-laden and hilarious way.
MARKETECH APAC spoke to both CoCo and GIGIL to learn about the concept process of said campaign, and how did they even managed to tap one of the biggest names in Filipino journalism to be the star of said campaign.
Right off the bat, the question was: why Ces Drilon?
“Stress Drilon” has been part of the vernacular. It only felt right to use Ms. Ces Drilon herself! It was refreshing to see her in a different light. In a way, our material was so entertaining, it became a stress reliever for Pinoys, too,” Nanais Hernandez, senior strategic planner at GIGIL quipped.
When asked what was the underlying theme for said campaign, Dana De Leon, associate creative director at GIGIL, notes that milk tea, as a drink, has always been considered as a treat or reward, rather than just a thirst-quencher.
“After a long, tiring day you’d find yourself heading to your favourite milk tea joint and getting that sweet relief in a cup. But before you take a sip, you strike that lid with your straw. And that cathartic little moment, we (the team) felt was a specially unique experience with milk tea. So why not make that experience ten–or a hundred times bigger?,” she said.
She also stressed the importance of injecting humour to this campaign, saying “CoCo – both its drinks and its branding – stems from fun and making people smile. This campaign simply amplified the brand’s existing traits–turning those smiles into belly laughs.”
Hernandez also added, “It all stems back to CoCo’s core–we’re refreshingly fun. Through whatever touchpoint, CoCo should be able to lift people’s spirits, especially during stressful times. .”
As the agency has long been known to create multiple outdoor activations for some of its clients such as Netflix Philippines, GIGIL has noted that activations like this tie up nicely with the overall messaging theme for the campaign.
Beverly Lubid, group account director at GIGIL, said, “We feel that it kind of ties the whole campaign together. Stemming from such an emotional insight (pertaining to stress,) it was just right that we let the audience not just watch, but also experience the relief. It’s one thing to watch someone jab a giant CoCo cup aggressively–but to experience it, we felt, provides a whole new level of catharsis.”
Meanwhile, Charmaine Tan, business development manager at CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice also added insights on the campaign’s direction, also stressing the importance of why Ces Drilon appearance in the ad make the ad very more locally relatable.
“First of all, it has to be the insight of stress being very relatable regardless of demographics. The feeling of stress isn’t supposed to be funny or comedic, but how the campaign painted stress relief in such a humorous way made it click with the audiences, who really resonated with how the character released their own stress in the film,” she said.
Tan added, “Additionally, the “Stress Drilon” insight is very Filipino. Making up a pun from a distinguished broadcaster’s name and using it as a general descriptor of your mood is such a Filipino way of making jokes, and we’re glad that CoCo got to use it in such a unique way while maintaining the main goal and message of the brand — CoCo’s drinks are stress relieving and fun.”
Larry Evans Tan, general manager CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice, commented that they also aimed to create a campaign that was rooted in milk tea being an exciting and rewarding experience whenever you drink it.
“We wanted our audiences to associate CoCo as a source of stress relief and excitement, so the angle was to really find a fun and entertaining way to integrate that insight into a film. The main campaign was just then built up when the team presented the idea of striking a giant cup, then connected it with the Stress Drilon reference for the film,” he said.
He also added, “It ties up very well as CoCo really wanted to present itself as a place where people can relax and reward themselves with a refreshing and relieving drink. We feel the film did a great job in highlighting that if you’re feeling stressed, you can de-stress and reward yourself with a drink in CoCo.”
