Blackpencil Manila's campaign for Vivo gives us the creeps; Paranormal Expert to the rescue

What’s more terrifying for selfie lovers than a horrible photo? Vivo explores that dilemma in a creepy-yet-catchy online video, “Paranormal Selfie”, which offers a solution: the Vivo V11.

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Blackpencil Manila of Leo Burnett Group Manila in collaboration with Film Pabrika, crafted the campaign which gave the Halloween-in-December vibe. Vivo tapped Ed Caluag, a paranormal investigator who has appeared on television many times. Blackpencil Manila’s ECD Kat Gomez-Limchoc said, “using him (Caluag) in the Vivo story gave it an air of “reality” that made it feel scarier. And then of course, his deadpan way just really worked for the ending”.

Limchoc shared that the brief was to highlight Vivo V11’s Perfect Backlight Shot feature. They came up with this unique idea because of the challenge to “stand out in a time when so many other brands were trying to catch the views, likes and shares of people so busy during the season”.

The video showed Caluag telling how he became a paranormal investigator and how he does it with his gadgets. Towards the end, he had to investigate this mysterious woman beside the Christmas tree captured on a phone. The end revealed a plot twist, showing how Caluag solved the “paranormal phenomenon” with Vivo V11.

The peculiar concept proved to be effective, with the online campaign garnering 5 million views on Youtube and 3 million views on Facebook with 111,000 reactions and shared by almost 37,000 users.