How do you show your love and appreciation in the time of community lockdowns and social distancing? 

For the longest time, toothpaste brand Closeup has been known for its Valentine’s Day campaigns, coming up with fresh ideas to feature and champion love and its many forms. 

However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Closeup had to think of new ways to continue the tradition. 

“This year, the biggest challenge was finding a way to celebrate how thrilling closeness can be, taking into consideration that the most widely known form of closeness, physical closeness, had to take the backseat in favor of everyone’s safety,” Pat Gan, Business Performance Executive for Oral Care Closeup Philippines said. 

“Thus, it was really all about unlocking the magic of digital platforms in order to effectively communicate our campaign that was the biggest challenge for us this year.” 

In the past, Gan added that Closeup’s Valentine’s Day campaigns “limitless” due to the fact that there weren’t any hindrances brought on by the year-long quarantine in the Philippines. 

#LoveBuildsLove with the help of AI

It became apparent that Closeup needed to leverage the use of technology — especially AI — to keep the ball rolling. For its 2021 Valentine’s Day Campaign, Closeup decided to highlight the importance of committing little acts of love. 

With the help of local AI company, Senti AI, Closeup launched an e-card generating chatbot that can be accessed through Facebook Messenger. 

Despite the untraditional route, Gan said that this year’s campaign still followed the brand’s three key principles, namely: engagement, seamlessness, and authenticity. 

The chatbot presented eye-catching visuals to entice users into crafting e-card for their loved ones in the easiest manner possible. Once the first e-card is created, the chatbot generates the user with exclusive voucher codes they can use on e-commerce platforms. 

Gan said this “[forms] a tight consumer journey with the rest of our activations.” 

Lastly, the chatbot still maintained the authenticity of the campaign despite having users go through digital channels. 

“Each e-card was given great attention to detail in terms of the creative layout, and especially the articulation of the statements on the e-card to ensure that these are things our consumers would openly say to their loved ones and supporters,” Gan added. 

The chatbot is powered by Google Cloud Platform and uses Natural Language Understanding with AI to enable a more human-like conversation with users— and even understand what the users are saying regardless if the users use Filipino or Taglish.

Senti AI’s chatbot is supported by over 30 years of academic and industry research in Natural Language Processing, in addition to being trained with over 500 million words.

A best practice for maximizing initiatives

Gan said that the campaign proved to be a success, with the chatbot going over its media metrics — namely its view rate and click-through rate.

Within a span of a week, Closeup saw more than 3,000 users generate e-cards. Over a thousand vouchers were also generated in the same short span of time. 

“[This indicates] that this was actually a best practice that the brand can adopt and maximize for its initiatives moving forward,” Gan added. 

Senti AI also made sure there were no hiccups over the course of the project — from the moment talks started until the campaign was over. 

“[W]e actually didn’t encounter any problems throughout the course of the deployment of the chatbot,” Gan said. 

“One thing we greatly appreciate is that the team actually went out of their own way to set a meeting with the Brand and Media teams to recap small bugs and practices that could help improve the user experience – which is not something you get from all partners.”

“I can say confidently that we look forward to working with Senti AI again for future Brand initiatives, and other brands or organizations should follow suit.”