Happiness

Client: SBS BroadCast Belgium
Product: Broadcasting network
Title: Belgian Break
Media: TV
Country: Belgium
Date Of Campaign: 18/03/2020

Background: The economical impact of the Corona crisis in Belgium was unprecedented. Especially for the local brands and the small businesses. Because paradoxically, in any crisis, companies need to invest to survive. Unfortunately, it’s the the multinationals that have the capacity and the buffer to do so. And the smaller local brands, they don’t. So, local businesses will have a huge problem to survive. A wave of bankruptcies is expected. As a matter of fact, by summer 2021, 40% of all Belgian local businesses are at risk of disappearing. So, helping out local brands in times of crisis is not an act of protectionism, it’s an act of survival.

Idea: In times of crisis, local resilience and local solidarity is key. So, media company SBS dedicated the media power of its most valuable and most watched commercial break, to help local brands to get through this unprecedented crisis. And what if by doing so, we would incite all Belgians to spend their money more purposefully? To help achieving all of this Belgium’s biggest broadcaster SBS launched: the ‘Belgian break’. Turning the valuable commercial break of the day into a break that showcases nothing but Belgian brands. Not just once, but every day. During the entire 5 months of lockdown.

Results: 83% of the nationwide population saw and liked the ‘Belgian break’ (source: Ipsos), and at a time when a lot of local advertisers were cancelling their media buy, SBS and the ‘Belgian Break’ managed to increase the number of Belgian advertisers by 176% (source: SBS, compared to pre-Covid times). But there’s more: 83% of the ‘responsible for purchase’ found the initiative very useful (source: Ipsos) and 45% of them indicated the ‘Belgian Break’ as the incentive to buy Belgian (source: Ipsos). Another striking result: there was 25% less channel surfing during the ‘Belgian Break’, compared to other commercial breaks (source: CIM Belgium).