Background

Climate change has become a key consideration for businesses around the world. This is in part because consumer behaviour is changing, but also because of increasing environmental regulations. To stay ahead of the curve, more and more companies are competing to introduce their own eco-friendly products.

Unfortunately, the race to sustainability has opened the door to a trend called ‘greenwashing’. This refers to when companies market themselves, their products or services in a way that makes them appear more environmentally friendly than they are.

In this sea of green marketing, it can be difficult to discern between companies that are faking it and companies that are genuinely working towards a more sustainable future – like Daikin.

That’s why, when introducing VRV 5 heat recovery – an innovative new climate control system with a lower environmental impact thanks to the use of R32 refrigerant – they wanted a campaign that would really set them apart.

Challenge

The challenge in creating a fun and user-friendly campaign for Daikin’s VRV 5 was its technical complexity. We had to find a clear way to communicate the product benefits without getting lost in the practical jargon.

And because we would be targeting both consultants and installers across Daikin’s international audience, the messaging had to be totally adaptable and easily translatable.

Another challenge was approaching sustainability in a unique way. We wanted to provide concepts that didn’t just follow stereotypical sustainability marketing trends. So, in our conceptual process, we made it our aim to bravely venture outside the box.

But whilst sustainability was a key product benefit, Daikin wanted to emphasise that this was not the only feature that made it the superior VRF system on the market. The audience we would be speaking to would also be interested in the more practical elements – like how easy the installation process is. This introduced another challenge – finding a concept that could stretch to accommodate several product benefits without losing focus.

Solution

This was the launch of a new flagship product for Daikin, so we knew that finding a creative concept that reflected the magnitude of the campaign was crucial. That’s why we worked closely with Daikin throughout the creative process, getting as much guidance as we could from the Marketing team through to the engineers, to fully understand the audience and product benefits.  

We presented three concepts for consideration, and continued to work closely with the Daikin teams during this time to gather feedback and get sign off before going into asset development. The final concept was chosen for epitomising the product and its benefits – a campaign that positioned Daikin’s VRV 5 heat recovery as the hero solution. Not the first R32 VRF system on the market, but the best one.

Our design team created a range of superheroes that would each represent a product benefit – Sustainability, Stretch, Smart, Support and Shîrudo Technology. “The new superheroes of commercial climate control”. These heroes would rescue consultants from stressful and costly building regulations and save installers time and hassle with easy and flexible installation and maintenance.  

With our superpowered team, we created a multi-channel approach, providing an extensive range of collateral including press ads, social ads, animated assets and a brochure.

Each product benefit being represented by a hero made it easy to adapt the assets depending on the audience we were targeting. It also meant that we could focus on one at a time, which helped simplify the complexity of the some of the more technical details.

As always, we handled the technical details very carefully – especially when it came to sustainability. To avoid any perception of greenwashing, we made sure to communicate the product’s environmental credentials in a clear and honest way.