Air purifier industry – Philips Romania in RomâniaRespiră campaign

Philips – is one of the largest electronics companies in the world, currently focused on health technology. One of the fastest growing departments is air purification. To develop this department, Philips needed to increase awareness about the issue of air quality because the biggest problem was lack of data.

Background

Official monitoring stations in Romania only provide data from a few locations, and are not updated regularly, only once per day. Romanians therefore need real time sources of information, which can be achieved via simple solutions like a mobile app. In 2019, in Bucharest, we recorded 126 days when the daily average concentration of PM2.5 exceeded the permissible standard (according to WHO recommendations of 25 μg / m3). Togheter with Philips Romania Airly decided to create a campaign called RomâniaRespiră, to build a real time monitoring system. The first was in Bucharest and later in other Romanian cities.

The first edition of the campaign lasted from January to March 2020. A special landing page https://repairtheair.org/romaniarespira/ was created to educate Romanians about air pollution and its health effects. The second edition sterded in November 2020 and will be active until the end of 2021.

Campaign idea

On the landing page, Romanians were able to buy one sensor and get the second one for free from Philips for their own homes. For those who didn’t need the sensor but wanted to support the action, we offered the possibility to donate and gather the money for a shared sensor installed in public locations like schools. Additionally Philips offered a 40% discount code on air purifiers. Thanks to the campaign, awareness of air pollution among Romanians has increased. People started sharing screenshots of the Airly map, and the issue was widely discussed on Facebook and Instagram.

Results of the campaign for Philips:

• Increase in the sales of Philips air purifiers in the Romanian market,
• Promotion of the Philips brand as being environmentally friendly and caring,
• Awarded and appreciated initiative – campaign has been showing recognition many times and received a variety of awards for the best CSR campaigns:
  – Golden Award for Excellence in Digital PR for Philips Romania, Airly & Red Dots. The award was given in 2020, at the 18th Romanian PR Award for all PR activities in the Romanian market.
  – Romanian CSR Award 2020. The campaign was awarded in the category DIGITAL INNOVATION IN CSR.
  – Biz Sustainability Awards 2020, in the environment category.

  Results of the campaign for Airly:

  • Increased awareness of air pollution among Romania residents,
  • Building the biggest network of sensors in Romania – nearly 170 locations in 40 cities.