Creativity has become a very important highlight in communication because, without it, people tend to be reluctant to hear or know about the message conveyed. To achieve that goal, the foundation of every communication activity is creativity. This factor is often ignored by many communicators. Without creativity, companies will find it difficult to communicate with stakeholders or the consumers in this case. In this situation, we can see how global companies conduct all communication activities that are new, innovative, and fresh. This is also the reason why they have a place in the hearts of stakeholders. The company that has successfully implemented creative ideas in their marketing communication is 7-Eleven.
Starting from a small 24-hour convenience store in the United States, it has now transformed into the world’s largest franchise company with a network of over 36,000 outlets in 18 countries. In early 2009, 7-Eleven released the latest type of coffee, Brazillian Bold Coffee. But unfortunately, it did not get a positive response from the public. Therefore, Freshwork / Ketchum as the brand communicator proactively conducted various communication campaigns about the product, like creating an interactive virtual dating game with the theme “Wake up with a Hot Brazilian”. When we hear the phrase “Wake up with a Hot Brazilian”, what comes first in our mind is that we wake up with a hot Brazilian next to us. This sensational creative idea has made people intrigued and curious about what it really means to “Wake up with a Hot Brazilian”.
“Wake up with Hot Brazilian” is a campaign through an online game targeted to men aged 18-34 years, so it is no wonder that the tagline is associated with men. However, in practice, men are not the only ones who love this game. To date, the number of female and male gamers is quite similar. The tagline is deliberately associated with a person’s sexual orientation to attract visitors, but in fact, the tagline refers to an online game where players visit Rio de Janeiro’s exotic 711 Club (www.the711club.com) and then select a (virtual) date from a choice list of hot women or men. Each correct answer earns “Mojo Points” and then the game is continued with other nightclub challenges. Sufficient “Mojo Points” earn an invitation to “Wake-Up with a Hot Brazillian” via a downloadable coupon for 7-Eleven’s Brazilian Bold coffee and a map to their nearest store location. The coupon can be then redeemed with Brazilian Bold hot coffee at the store.
It takes high creativity to create an effective brand communication, especially now when people get more critical and easily bored with a theme that shows not much differentiation in the market. Before coming up with such tagline, Freshwork/Ketchum did some research so that their communication can reach the right target and achieve the ultimate goal, which is to make Brazilian Bold coffee thrive in the market and build customers’ willingness to buy the brand. The research was carried out in major  and supporting research in which they conduct a competitive analysis about other coffee brands in the perspective of PR, Marketing and Advertising, thoroughly examining the existence of the campaign “Wake up with Hot Brazilian”, studying the free time of the targets and the habits of the media including games, reality TV, online behavior, and  the popularity of online dating, and finally, conducting an in-depth analysis of the most famous online games and the latest trends or expectations of the web enthusiasts. The research resulted in the insights about the web lovers as the millennium target that gets bored easily and questions marketing, the target is people who like new things and share that information to friends by word of mouth. The online game will bring 7-Eleven to the virtual world where the millennium public feels ‘alive’ in it.
The campaign is expected to increase awareness about Brazilian Bold coffee of 7-Eleven with a target of 75 million shows on various media, creating a positive word of mouth on Brazilian Bold coffee by launching 7 -Eleven Facebook Page, and supporting the Brazilian Bold coffee experiment with a target of 12,000 coupon downloads. It is proven that the aggressive “Wake up with Hot Brazilian” campaign conducted by 7-Eleven has an impact on the increase of the number of visitors to the site by more than 92,000 people. Followers on twitter increased beyond expectation, more than 9,000 fans like 7 -Eleven’s Facebook page during the campaign, 95 million news reports are shown on various media and more than 20,000 coupons have been redeemed.
So, it can be concluded that communicating creatively is eventually proven effective in building brand communication about the product that makes people interested in learning more about the message conveyed. The “Wake up with a hot Brazilian” campaign has managed to encourage the public’s willingness to buy Brazilian Bold coffee. With the campaign about the coffee tasting, the public is expected to love the latest coffee variant of the 7-Eleven they have not known before. As the saying goes “You can’t love what you don’t know”.