NudeJEH Bangkok is behind the evil plot to kidnap all the Bar B Gon mascots in Thailand

Famous international franchise restaurant brands often use mascots as an important marketing tool to connect with consumers. McDonald’s has Ronald McDonald. KFC had Colonel Sanders. And Burger King has The King. Bar B Q Plaza, the #1 BBQ franchise restaurant in Thailand, is no different – it has the famous green dragon, Bar B Gon, as their mascot.

Since Bar B Q Plaza’s launch 20 years ago, Bar B Gon has been around for customers to interact and take pictures with, and has even been featured in many of the restaurant’s classic TV commercials. And many customers, especially teens and young children, have grown emotionally attached to Bar B Gon.

NudeJEH Bangkok were given a brief by the client to redesign the Bar B Gon mascot, without losing it’s originality. But this brief presented itself as a far bigger opportunity. Rather than just ‘redesign a mascot’, we took this rare chance to enhance the brand’s relationship with consumers. The agency created a humorous but emotional story about the kidnap and massacre of Bar B Gons that played on consumers’ emotional bond with them. They wanted people to sympathize with every Bar B Gon’s fate in this real-life tragedy.

Nude JEH created a fully integrated campaign of online, on-air, on ground and on shop interactive communication divided into three phases, designed to feel as realistic as possible. They are currently in the first phase.

The story began with a real kidnap of all 84 Bar B Gon mascots from every Bar B Q Plaza branch nationwide, which was caught on CCTV and seeded as a viral clip. The act was carried out by a fictional character called Sia Seng, an orphaned arrogant, middle-aged mafia, who has a big appetite for Bar B Q Plaza but zero tolerance for children. Then Sia Seng appeared on prime-time television that same day to broadcast his intentions, demanding the owners of Bar  B Q Plaza to prohibit children from entering the restaurant, despite being a family restaurant. All he wants is to enjoy his favorite meal in peace without the happy children to remind him of his orphaned childhood. And if his demands are not met, he will ‘kill’ every kidnapped Bar-B-Gon.

View the kidnapping:  CCTV.mov

Awareness of the kidnappings were raised by TV and radio tie-ins, online programs and seeding of the TV commercial, Bar B Q Plaza Facebook updates, and in-store posters linked to the events.

And in the following week, both online viral clips of Bar B Gon ‘executions’ and guerilla media* of ‘dead’ Bar B Gons in major areas across the country were released. All the events were endlessly uploaded onto social networks and websites, generating plenty of discussion. People were just surprised and captivated by the hilarious “killings” of Bar B Gon, and at the same time sympathetic for the tragedy.

Furthermore, a Facebook fanpage and Twitter feeds for Sia Seng (www.twitter.com/sia_seng) were created to allow consumers to interact with him directly.

Unfortunately, only after the first week, the flood situation in Thailand worsened drastically. Over half of Bar B Q Plaza restaurants have now temporarily closed due to heavy flooding at their factory last week. This has prompted the client to put the campaign on hold at the moment.

So the right thing to do now was to have Sia Seng stop his Bar B Gon killings temporarily, and set him on a real CSR charity mission to help flood victims. So Sia Seng will be seen traveling to flooded areas, giving out his favorite food and water from Bar B Q Plaza to people, while maintaining his character’s humorous arrogance. And of course, his attempt to make children happy despite disliking them will definitely get some laughs. NudeJEH are currently seeding these CSR clips online.

See the CSR vision: BarBGon CSR Clip.flv

However, the agency is also maintaining the momentum of the Bar B Gon killing campaign simultaneously. So they recently announced a recruit of members to Sia Seng’s gang by asking people to compete in submitting their ideas on killing Bar B Gons to Sia Seng. First round results are out now.

Until now, Facebook fans have increased up to 29,000 fans, Sia Seng’s fan page has 5,500 fans, and Twitter has 2,200 followers.

What happens next depends on how the flood situation resolves itself, which will be a challenge to this campaign. The campaign will soon continue. There will be more Bar B Gon killings after the flood, until the very last one is destroyed. And the final phase will be the rebirth of Bar B Gon, which will be a big public event at Siam Center, one of Bangkok’s most popular malls.