Case study · Cornetto SEA · 2024

Unwrap [the new cornetto] with Cha Eun-Woo.

A K-pop brand ambassador. A new product launch. A campaign that had to work across Southeast Asia without feeling like it was made by committee.

Cornetto SEA Cha Eun-Woo brand campaign TVC · OOH · Packaging · Social Creative Strategy

The situation

The K-wave is everywhere. How do you ride it without drowning in it?

Cornetto selected Cha Eun-Woo as its new global brand ambassador. The campaign needed to span TV, OOH, packaging, and social, and tap K-pop cultural energy without feeling like every other brand doing the same thing in 2024.

The instinct

Don't use the celebrity. Become inseparable from him.

The line "once you unwrap, you can't go back" worked on two levels. The ice cream: the moment of indulgence, the irreversibility of desire. And Cha Eun-Woo: the particular helplessness of falling for someone that his fans know intimately. The campaign didn't need to explain the connection. It just needed to make both things feel true at once.

Critically: packaging redesign. When the ambassador's face is on the product itself, the campaign doesn't end when the ad stops running. Every Cornetto sold was a media placement.

TVC

Packaging

Cornetto packaging redesign A
Cornetto packaging redesign B

Out of home billboard

Cornetto OOH placement

What I learned

Celebrity campaigns live or die on the insight, not the celebrity. Cha Eun-Woo was the vehicle. The emotional truth about desire was the campaign.

Regional campaigns need one sharp universal truth, not multiple localised compromises.

Packaging is underrated as a strategic channel. It outlasts any paid media flight.