This special SlideShare edition features 26 projects of all shapes and budgets that were originally published in the three 2015 Editions of Best of Branded Content Marketing (BOBCM). We hope they will provide inspiration and encourage more great work from brands and their branded content marketing partners.
2. Preface:2015casestudies
Preface:
2015 Case Studies
# By Justin Kirby,
Founder & Curator,
BOBCM
Racing bunnies can sell electronic consumer goods, Monopoly can
explain quantitive easing, and budding entrepreneurs have mastered
their fears because Richard Branson’s mum pushed him of out a car
when he was a boy.
How do people come up with these award-winning, brand-building
marketing ideas? And what can you learn from them to improve your
own creative output, customer relationships and business results?
This special SlideShare edition features 26 projects of all shapes and
budgets that were originally published in the three 2015 Editions of
Best of Branded Content Marketing (BOBCM). We hope they will
provide inspiration and encourage more great work from brands and
their branded content marketing partners
5. Challenge
D&AD:Always#LikeAGirl
Procter & Gamble’s Always is the world’s
leading feminine care brand. Its commitment to
empowering girls through puberty education
dates back decades. Yet in 2013, the brand
realised that its purpose wasn’t apparent to the
latest generation of consumers. Always’ brand
communications had remained focused on
product performance, while its main
competitors had moved on.
Always needed a new way to appeal to
millennial girls in the face of growing
competition from rivals gaining traction via
social media.
Always briefed its agency partners – Leo
Burnett Chicago, London, Toronto, and
Holler – to create a new campaign that:
1. leveraged Always’ legacy of supporting girls
as they go through puberty;
2. reinforced why Always is relevant to girls;
and
3. showed that Always understands the social
issues girls today face at puberty.
5
6. D&AD:Always#LikeAGirl
Research conducted for the campaign revealed
that more than 50 percent of women claimed
they experienced a decline in confidence at
puberty. The opportunity was clear to the
creative team: there was a powerful, relevant
and purposeful role for the campaign to
empower girls during this time of their lives
when their confidence is low.
The team explored different factors that
influence girls during the vulnerable time of
puberty. During this process, someone taped a
piece of paper that read ‘like a girl’ to the
board. The explanation behind the idea was
that ‘like a girl’ has been around forever and is
used in derogatory ways – let’s change the
meaning of it. The team was instantly drawn to
this concept.
The campaign that ensued was built around a
social experiment to show the impact that the
phrase ‘like a girl’ had on society, especially on
girls pre- and post-puberty. The campaign
would also aim to redefine confidence in a way
that was more relevant to girls today and turn a
phrase that had become an insult into an
empowering message.
The content at the heart of the campaign
was a video that captured how people of all
ages interpret the phrase ‘like a girl’. This was
seen as the best way to spark a conversation
by encouraging debate.
Directed by documentary filmmaker Lauren
Greenfield, the footage revealed that, between
puberty and adulthood, many women
internalise the phrase ‘like a girl’ to mean
weakness and vanity. The experiment also
showed how a little encouragement can go a
long way to change perceptions of what ‘like a
girl’ means.
Once the film was shot, the details of how best
to spread the message and empower women
were finalised. The hashtag #LikeAGirl was
introduced as an essential social media
element to unite people around the world,
enabling them to discuss the need for change
and to show others how ‘like a girl’ can mean
amazing things.
6
7. 4th most viewed ad on YouTube in 2014
290 million+
social impressions
Strong double-digit increase in
brand equity % during campaign
Won eight D&AD Pencils, including a Black Pencil
in 2015 in the Creativity for Good category
85 million+ global views on
YouTube from 150+ countries
D&AD:Always#LikeAGirl
The #LikeAGirl video was launched on 26
June 2014 at a PR event and on YouTube
simultaneously. PR then played a big part in
amplifying its effect, getting the video out to the
media and influencers.
The #LikeAGirl hashtag captured the essence
of the idea and encouraged people to take part
in changing the meaning of the phrase, which
had a big impact on distribution and
engagement. Unsolicited influencers joined the
conversation and more than 20 female
organisations spread the word.
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8. D&AD:Always#LikeAGirl
#
#
Outcome
8
“I was really proud to be part of this Always social
experiment. The most moving part of the
experiment for all of us watching and engaging with
the participants was how many women [showed us
negative connotations of what ‘like a girl’ meant to
them] then went ‘Wait a minute, why did I just do
that?’ I think confidence means being able to find
your own power that gives you some stability and
allows you to follow your own path in a way where
you can express yourself.”
Lauren Greenfield,
filmmaker, director of
#LikeAGirl film
Always #LikeAGirl generated considerable awareness
around the world and changed the way people think
about the phrase ‘like a girl’.
Prior to watching the film, just 19% of 16- to 24-year-
olds had a positive association toward the phrase
‘like a girl’. After watching, 76% said they no longer
saw the phrase negatively. In addition, two out of
three men who watched it said they’d now think
twice before using ‘like a girl’ as an insult.
Since the #LikeAGirl launch, other videos have been
made to expand and develop the campaign. They
include a 60-second spot during the 2015 Super
Bowl and, to mark International Women’s Day, the
follow-up video ‘Unstoppable’ showing how the
meaning of the phrase ‘like a girl’ is already changing.
The initial social experiment has snowballed into an
Always-backed global movement that includes
confidence summits and education partnerships
to help empower girls.
“#LikeAGirl is proof of the power of creativity. People
connect with and buy from brands that share similar
points of view or values they have. These brands have
big ambitions and they make an emotional connection
with their consumers. That’s why purpose-driven
brands are succeeding.”
Judy John,
CEO & Chief Creative Officer,
Leo Burnett Canada
10. Challenge
D&AD:HondaTheOtherSide
Across Europe, Honda Civic car sales were in
decline. The model’s target audience of fathers
saw Honda as reliable but boring, the safe
option chosen for rational reasons. What they
really wanted was a cool, sporty car.
Honda’s agency partner, Wieden+Kennedy,
was given the mission to drive reappraisal of
the Honda Civic for the launch of the Type-R in
2015.
10
11. D&AD:HondaTheOtherSide
Wieden+Kennedy consulted all the information
they had about the Honda brand, the Civic
model, and how and why fathers buy cars.
They knew from Google research that 93% of
people research cars online and 61% watch
online films before purchase. They knew that,
to drive re-appraisal, they would need to bring
out 'the other side' of the Honda Civic – the
racing-inspired Civic Type-R. And they wanted
people to experience this feeling with some
kind of online ‘test drive’.
This insight helped Wieden+ Kennedy hit upon
the core idea of an interactive, double-sided
story in which a father leads a double life. By
day, he's a Civic-driving, doting dad. By night,
he's a Civic Type-R-driving, undercover cop.
The agency created an interactive online film
called 'The Other Side'. It starts by showing a
man calmly picking up his kids from school in a
Honda Civic. But whenever you press ‘R’ on
your computer keyboard, it switches to show
the crazier, more impulsive side of the man’s
life, driving the Honda Civic Type-R in an
undercover police sting operation. The two
interlinked stories run in perfect parallel,
seamlessly transitioning between the
underlying films at the viewer’s will.
To implement this entertaining web experience,
a smooth and accurately synchronised
playback with latency-free switching between
the two films was required. Dedicated desktop,
mobile and tablet versions were optimised to
make this possible, working with interactive
production partner Stinkdigital.
11
12. 90,000+ social network shares
90% of traffic
driven organically
Honda Civic website traffic doubled
via post-experience clickthroughs
5000+ leads requesting more
information about the Type-R
Multiple awards including Graphite
Pencil at D&AD Pencil Awards 2015
5 million visits to the
campaign website
D&AD:HondaTheOtherSide
The Other Side branded content campaign was
simultaneously launched in 22 regions across
Europe, integrated directly in each market's
own Honda YouTube channel, yet accessible to
all through a single global campaign web
address.
Following The Other Side experience, viewers
were encouraged to share the link on social
networks before learning more about the Civic
range on Honda's product websites.
12
13. D&AD:HondaTheOtherSide
#
#
Outcome
13
“This campaign marks a very significant time for our
brand. The Civic Type-R is one of six new car
launches for Honda in 2015 and provides a powerful
halo effect for the marque. Just as our products are
renowned for being innovative, our communications
style will amplify this. By way of example, we are not
aware of anyone else creating interactive
user content in the same dramatic way, which
should give it a very strong appeal.”
Jemma Jones,
Department Manager -
European Marketing Communications,
Honda Motor Europe Ltd
The Other Side intrigued participants
with its parallel stories and satisfied
them with the technique involved in
telling the tales. The interactive
content that literally put the viewer in
the driving seat, very simply and
effectively made them feel the two
sides of the car.
The campaign fulfilled its mission to
drive reappraisal of the Honda Civic.
Consideration doubled when people
pressed ‘R’ and experienced the other
side. The average dwell time of 2
minutes 52 seconds was the entire
length of the experience. In advertising
evaluation research, the film scored
58% for captivation versus the car ad
norm of 34%. And brand desire
increased by 3% post-campaign.
“The beauty of this idea is in the simplicity of the
interaction. The simple act of pressing ‘R’ empowers
the viewer to drive the film, toggling between the two
stories. It’s very satisfying and addictive jumping from
the Civic day world to the high-octane night world of
the Type-R. It’s like going into race mode and putting
your foot down. You get a sense of power and
excitement. Through this we hope people will feel
Honda’s other side as well as see it.”
Scott Dungate,
Creative Director,
Wieden+Kennedy, London
15. Challenge
D&AD:GUINNESSSapeurs
In recent years, the drinks industry has
seen a rapid rise in the popularity of
independent beers produced in
microbreweries in small quantities and sold
to a new generation of drinkers who like a
story behind the drink in their hand. This
craft beer category is estimated to be
growing at around 79% a year.*
Legendary international beer brand
GUINNESS, positioned as a more
sophisticated alternative to lager, wanted to
address this explosion in attention-
grabbing, progressive beers.
GUINNESS challenged its agency partner
AMV BBDO to develop the existing ‘Made
of More’ communications platform and
provide the brand with conversational
currency i.e. give people something
interesting to talk about over their
GUINNESS. But what?
15
* Source: GCA Strategies
16. D&AD:GUINNESSSapeurs
AMV BBDO took a step back and asked: “If the
objective here is to make the brand more
interesting by providing stories that will be
enjoyed and shared, shouldn’t we simply ask
ourselves, what makes an interesting story?”
There followed a phase of desk research
identifying a long list of elements that make a
good story. These were whittled down and
refined to produce five criteria that GUINNESS
stories needed to fulfil:
1. Truth – real stories have greater substance
and integrity
2. Lesson – something important you feel you
discover from the story
3. Conflict – a struggle or challenge that has to
be overcome successfully
4. Characters – people others can relate to and
empathise with, particularly protagonists
5. Setting – it needs to be memorable
The stories also had to strengthen the
perception of GUINNESS whose brand values
are substance, character and integrity. The
reasoning was that, if GUINNESS consistently
celebrates these values in others, people would
associate the same values with GUINNESS.
The GUINNESS communications platform
‘Made of More’ had launched in 2013 with two
films, ‘Clock’ and ‘Cloud’ – fictional stories of
inanimate objects doing extraordinary things.
Now the platform definition needed to evolve to
reflect how GUINNESS wanted to tell real,
human stories that reflect the values of the
brand.
With that in mind, ‘Made of More’ was
redefined as a platform that celebrates people
with the confidence to carve their own path. A
beer with more, celebrating people with more.
Halfway through 2013, the search began for the
first true story of substance, character and
integrity, designed to provide conversational
currency to a new generation of drinkers. This
search led the campaign team to Central Africa
and a group of characters called the Sapeurs.
Sapeurs are members of La Sape (Société
des Ambianceurs et des Personnes
Élégantes), a social movement centred in
Brazzaville, the capital of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. With origins dating
back to a defiance of French colonisation, the
Sapeurs are blue-collar workers who, in
colourful contrast to their surroundings,
transform themselves into debonair gentlemen,
dancing and strutting in celebration of style and
elegance.
The extraordinary Sapeurs embody the values
of substance, character and integrity shared by
GUINNESS. They overcome a struggle, namely
their environment. They hold a life lesson,
namely not allowing your circumstances to
define who you are. And they are people from
an interesting place who are easy to empathise
with. They were chosen as the subject of the
first new GUINNESS ‘Made of More’ campaign
launched in 2014.16
17. 3.6 million online ad views
1.7 million
documentary views on YouTube;
estimated media value £510,000
(Source: Carat)
(Source: Freud PR)
(Source: Data2Decisions)
£4 million in earned media
Entire campaign sales
ROI £3.63 per £1 spend
D&AD:GUINNESSSapeurs
People feel they have greater conversational
currency when they have additional information
about a subject. This principle was applied to
the Sapeurs branded content campaign.
The standard 90-second and 30-second TV
ads were made and aired, however these only
provided a snippet of the Sapeurs’ story. The
full story – ‘The Men Inside the Suits’ – was
presented in a five-minute documentary on
YouTube.
The online versions of the ad included links to
the documentary, effectively making the ad a
trailer to the full story.
People who watched the ad and clicked
through to the documentary actively sought
more and were rewarded with more – in terms
of both the extra information itself that they
could propagate socially and a deeper
connection with the Sapeurs content (and, by
extension, the GUINNESS brand).
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18. D&AD:GUINNESSSapeurs
#
#
Outcome
18
“We are proud to celebrate the
Sapeurs who, through their
attitude and style, demonstrate
that no matter the circumstance,
you can always choose who you
are. The longer form content
allowed us to fully tell the story of
this truly unique and inspiring
group of people.”
Nick Britton,
Marketing Manager,
GUINNESS,
Western Europe
The GUINNESS Sapeurs branded content
campaign proved that, while brands need to tell
stories, those stories don’t need to be about the
brand in order for them to enhance brand
performance. Rather, they need to adhere to a
set of ‘good story’ criteria, reflect the values of
the brand in order to pay into brand equity, and
be presented in ways that maximise their
conversational currency.
In addition to the results overleaf, there was
significant evidence of people talking about the
Sapeurs campaign. For example, the Google
search term ‘Sapeurs’ spiked hugely at the time,
a number of groups parodied the campaign,
and the GUINNESS sales team were inundated
with calls from pub landlords requesting
permission to hold their own Sapeurs’ nights in
pubs.
Among other awards since its launch, the
campaign won a Wood Pencil in the Branded
Content & Entertainment category at the D&AD
Awards 2015.
“The Sapeurs have such an
incredible story that we felt
that it needed to be told in a
longer content format and in
their own words.”
Nadja Lossgott and Nicholas Hulley,
Sapeurs campaign creative team,
AMV BBDO
20. Challenge
D&AD:PEDIGREEK9FM
Pet food brand PEDIGREE’s mission has
always been to look after dogs’ wellbeing – not
only via the food bowl, but also emotionally by
providing wide-ranging dog care information
and supporting initiatives such as a dog
adoption drive.
PEDIGREE New Zealand challenged agency
partner Colenso BBDO to create deeper
engagement with the brand and come up with
new opportunities to get PEDIGREE products
into the hands of dog owners.
20
COLENSO
21. D&AD:PEDIGREEK9FM
Colenso BBDO’s strategy was to engage with
dog lovers by engaging with their dogs.
Research had shown that dogs get stressed
when left alone at home. Although many owners
leave the radio on to keep their dogs company,
it’s radio aimed at humans. The solution was to
create a radio station specifically crafted for
dogs: K9FM.
The research also revealed details about canine
personalities and behaviour, including the facts
that classical music calms dogs down, a relaxed
human voice eases their separation anxiety, and
ambient sounds keep them interested.
Armed with this insight, Colenso BBDO
partnered with Clemenger BBDO, Australia,
New Zealand Radio Broadcasting School, music
and sound studio Franklin Road, canine
behaviour consultant Jess Allsop and a group of
actors. The team created hours of original
content designed to have a positive effect on
dogs’ wellbeing and keep them entertained.
Top dog-themed shows included: Talkies,
discussing important topics like “Where is the
ball, really?”; Fetch in the Park – a live outside
broadcast from a dog park; Meditation and
Relaxation with Vet Joanna; Cuts of Meat, Types
of Ball, Stupid Cats and much more.
The campaign ran for 12 weeks from May 2014, broadcasting a mix of
music and speech 24 hours a day on 87.7 K9FM, with content rotated
and refreshed to ensure no two days’ output sounded the same.
The station launch was supported by a promotional and PR campaign.
Multiple activations at targeted locations designed to connect with dog
owners included a branded van distributing promotional materials and
broadcasting live from local parks. As word spread, the story was
covered by national media, thereby increasing the station’s potential
audience.
An important piece of insight from the research was that the sound
dogs love to listen to most is their owner’s voice. So owners were given
the ability to interact directly with their homebound hounds by calling
the station live on air to leave personalised ‘shout outs’. This
introduced fresh content and was a key engagement feature, helping
the campaign to fulfil its objectives.
21
22. Earned media reach 10x+
higher than target
1000+ calls from dog owners
leaving messages for their dogs
PEDIGREE NZ sales hit
three-year high within
two months of K9FM launch
#
D&AD:PEDIGREEK9FM
22
"I am in no doubt that it was the
depth of content as well as its
sheer scale that made this work.
Typically, once a campaign has
run we’re asking: “What next?”
But the brand content we made
for K9FM was such fun to make
with so clear and real a purpose,
the focus now is on how to push
it out further.”
Levi Slavin,
former Creative Director,
Colenso BBDO, (now Creative
Director, BBDO, New York)
23. D&AD:PEDIGREEK9FM
#
Outcome
23
“It has been an amazing year for
PEDIGREE. The secret behind all
the creative recognition we’ve
had is the trust that exists
between the Colenso BBDO
team and the local Mars team.
They are the real heroes behind
all our record D&AD and Cannes
wins this year. With trust, fear
goes away, possibilities emerge
and ideas are freely shared.”
Leonid Sudakov,
Chief Marketing Officer,
Global Petcare,
Mars
The K9FM branded content campaign
attracted significant earned media interest,
social comment and online content sharing
during its three-month broadcast. The idea
of engaging with dogs first and foremost
unlocked a deeper emotional connection
with dog owners.
The campaign won a multitude of marketing
industry awards, including three Silver and
two Bronze Lions, a Gold and Grand Prix
Spike, a Gold Pencil at The One Show, a
Gold and Grand Prix Axis Award, a Mashie –
and two Yellow Pencils and the prestigious
Black Pencil at the D&AD Awards 2015.
Perhaps the ultimate success indicator is
that PEDIGREE’s parent company Mars is
now considering how best to roll out the
idea in other markets.
More details about this campaign and its innovative use of radio are
provided in partnership with Radiocentre on the D&AD website.
25. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:DellToughEnough
Dell is very well known as a manufacturer of great value laptops and desktop
computers.
However, half its business revenue comes from providing IT infrastructure products,
such as servers and related expertise, to corporate IT departments.
In summer 2014, Dell Germany challenged its agency partner MediaCom Germany
to get Dell’s corporate IT solutions on the consideration lists of the country’s IT
Decision Makers (ITDMs). The overriding objective was to generate 12,000 leads
within this hard-to-convince B2B audience.
The first problem was that B2B marketing to ITDMs is very different to B2C marketing
to your typical consumer. Not only are B2B purchases based more on logic than
emotion, but also – particularly when it comes to critical infrastructure such as IT –
businesses tend to have a set-in-stone, preferred supplier purchasing process to
streamline time and costs. New suppliers have a long furrow to plough, working extra
hard to earn ITDMs’ trust just to get on the consideration list, let alone make a sale.
The bottom line is that the key budget holder is highly risk averse, brand loyal and
reluctant to change.
This led to the second problem: MediaCom’s research revealed that Dell wasn’t seen
as a relevant or trusted brand, particularly among Germany’s important medium-sized
businesses. The brand wasn’t even on the consideration list for the vast majority of
ITDMs, lagging behind HP and IBM. Consideration levels for Dell were stuck at 27%,
just above half the level of its main competitors who both scored 52%.
And the final problem was that Dell hadn’t ever spoken to this ITDM audience. The
lack of dialogue had allowed prejudice to grow, and Dell was widely seen as an
American company that didn’t understand the German market.
25
26. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:DellToughEnough
To help develop a campaign strategy,
MediaCom spent hours talking and listening to
ITDMs. This led to the earth-shattering
discovery that ITDMs weren’t even the key
target market!
Most ITDMs don’t actually know that much
about IT – IT equipment is just one more thing
to buy, alongside company cars and managing
the facilities. ITDMs rely on an informal network
of IT colleagues to advise them, with
administrators being the critical link in the
chain.
IT administrators are the savvy people who
maintain IT infrastructure every day. They deal
with error messages, tricky software updates,
and – most challenging of all – the frustration of
being surrounded by computer illiterates.
MediaCom realised that showing IT
administrators that Dell understood their pain
was crucial to building a better relationship and
starting to get Dell more involved in the
purchase decision-making journey.
From this insight came the inspiration to
develop a branded content marketing
campaign that would make Dell part of the IT
administrators’ daily world in an engaging and
entertaining way.
Dell would become the heartbeat of a new
community where IT administrators could tell
each other how they felt about the rest of the
office, enabling them to let off steam.
MediaCom Beyond Advertising and their
production partner Hogarth created a 16-
webisode sitcom, telling the day-to-day stories
and struggles that only IT administrators could
truly understand. The campaign message was
“Life is Tough Enough, Take IT easy”.
26
27. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:DellToughEnough
The sitcom was promoted through ads on
Germany’s most popular IT websites, as well as
tightly targeted Facebook video ads and
blogger outreach.
These promotions connected people to a new
Dell ‘Tough Enough’ Tumblr page created for
the campaign, where IT administrators could
create memes, contribute their stories of the
‘Dumbest Assumable User’ (DAU) in their
companies, and use the bespoke DAU
generator to turn their stories into gif images
that could be shared.
Integrated with Facebook and Twitter, the
highly visual campaign site was a magnet for
the funniest stories that IT administrators could
provide, ranging from users who couldn’t type
in their passwords to those who didn’t know
that home Wi-Fi wouldn’t work outside the
home…
In addition, free merchandise, such as mugs
and buzzers featuring the worst DAU stories,
was offered to IT administrators who provided
their contact details in return – fulfilling the aim
of generating meaningful leads.
Finally, the Tumblr site was linked to Dell’s
business website that ran interviews with IT
administrators talking about the challenges
they faced in their daily lives.
ITDMs weren’t completely forgotten: carefully
targeted print and outdoor ads designed to
reach them on business trips invited them to
peek behind the IT door; and QR codes
encouraged them to connect with the
campaign content.
27
28. 220 user-generated memes
New community of 213,000+ IT
people, 20% returning regularly
1.5 million video views of the sitcom, 50% earned
650+ user-generated DAU-experiences
Earned media valued at 32% of
the total budget
Dell B2B buzz up by 1,288%; 76% positive
comments vs 10% industry benchmark
15,000+ qualified business leads
Germany,Austria&Switzerland:DellToughEnough
Results
28
In only four months, the Dell
‘Tough Enough’ campaign
resulted in:
29. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:DellToughEnough
#
29
“The Dell ‘Tough Enough’
campaign was so successful
because, rather than talking to
the target audience about
servers or back-end
infrastructure, we created
branded content that
entertained them while still
enabling them to relate to the
brand. We made them laugh
and, most importantly, we also
made it easy for them to share
their own stories.”
Norman Wagner,
Managing Partner, MediaCom
Beyond Advertising, Germany
The innovative Dell ‘Tough Enough’ campaign won a bevy of
awards in 2015, including two gold awards at the Global Festival
of Media Awards (for Best Targeted Campaign and Best
Community Development), and a silver Cannes Media Lion. As
we go to publication, it’s also the most shortlisted campaign
overall at the M&M Global Awards.
It produced a whole host of positive benefits for the brand, even
more laudable given the B2B category and the brand’s low
starting point for consideration by IT administrators.
The first episode of the sitcom was the most successful
Facebook IT category post ever. In one week, it generated more
than 120,000 organic views, 3,000 shares and more than 1,000
comments.
The campaign merchandise became a must-have for IT
administrators. It generated over 15,000 qualified business
leads, saving Dell more than 50% on the normal cost per lead
and beating the campaign target by 25%.
Within a very short space of time, thanks to this campaign, Dell
has joined the IT conversation in Germany and is now a genuine
contender the next time its target audience considers a new
hardware purchase.
Dell and MediaCom are the throes of extending the campaign
with a follow-up that’s due to go live as we go to publication in
September 2015, making use of the same sitcom characters and
involving the 213,000-strong IT community with a new sales
twist.
31. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:MediaMarktRabbitRace
For their 2015 promotional Easter campaign,
Germany’s leading consumer electronics retailer,
Media Markt, was looking for a new and
innovative approach.
Media Markt’s aim was to increase awareness
during the Easter period and tempt customers
into their stores. In order to cut through the clutter
and differentiate from the numerous other Easter
promotions, the campaign had to be smart, bold
and entertaining.
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32. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:MediaMarktRabbitRace
Together with Ogilvy and Endemol Beyond,
Media Markt developed a unique live sports
event: the Media Markt ‘Rabbit Race’ (Das
große Osterhasen-Rasen).
The idea: 10 rabbits, wearing the starting
numbers 0 to 9, would compete in a sprint race
series hosted by the popular sports
commentator Frank Buschmann.
To encourage Media Markt customers to get
behind the Rabbit Race, every Media Markt
shopping receipt doubled as an official betting
slip. For example, if you had a receipt number
ending in a ‘4’, you backed rabbit number four.
There were three two-minute-long race
broadcasts on 1, 2 and 4 April 2015, and it paid
off to cheer for your rabbit each time –
customers whose receipt numbers matched
the winning bunny’s number received 50
percent cashback on their purchase in the form
of a Media Markt voucher.
The rabbits were presented as celebrity
characters with fun names to help trigger
conversation and support among the general
public. From aging superstar Turboflausch, to
bad boy athlete Der Zermöhrer and adrenalin
junkie mountaineer Puschel to the Limit, the
rabbits took on popular personas and fans
were able to find out details of their special
dietary habits, career profiles, music
preferences and more. Of course, the rabbits
also had a (real life) professional trainer caring
for them.
32
33. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:MediaMarktRabbitRace
In a media first, the Rabbit Race series was
broadcast live during prime time ad breaks on
the nine leading German free-to-air TV stations
(SAT.1, ProSieben, kabel eins, RTL, SUPER
RTL, RTL NITRO, VOX, n-tv and the Disney
Channel) simultaneously, as well as online on
YouTube’s homepage, the Media Markt website
and Germany’s most popular news site Bild.de.
In addition to the Race series itself, there was
an integrated communication campaign using
traditional advertising, PR and social media. In
the weeks before the live event, the Rabbit
Race was heavily promoted with
complementary branded content – such as
profiles of each rabbit, collectors’ cards,
training insight, celebrity interviews and press
conferences with the rabbits, behind-the-
scenes reports, and other interactive, engaging
elements – which was shared across social
media by fans. Media Markt also responded to
social media comments during and after the
event, including posting personal greeting
cards online for supporters.
33
34. 21 million live viewers (a bigger audience
than the FIFA World Cup 2014 semifinal
between Germany and Brazil)
37% market share in the
relevant target group
250 million net reach online
7.8 million tweets in four days
+259% interaction with
the brand’s Facebook page
Increased traffic in stores (+18.2 %)
Won two Gold Lions, 1 Silver Lion and 2 Bronze
Lions at the 2015 Cannes Lions festival
Germany,Austria&Switzerland:MediaMarktRabbitRace
Results
#
34
“The Rabbit Race is yet
more proof of Media
Markt’s creative
innovation: Germany’s
biggest supplier of
consumer electronics is
itself becoming an
entertainer and turning a
promotional campaign
into a sporting event for
the whole family.”
Felix Fenz,
Executive Creative Director,
Ogilvy & Mather
35. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:MediaMarktRabbitRace
#
Outcome
35
“The courage to create and implement an
outstandingly unique idea, and most
especially the perfect synchronisation of
all the service providers involved, were the
two factors of major importance for the
success of our Rabbit Race campaign.
Our creative agency Ogilvy developed the
spectacular design of the idea, which
immediately thrilled us. Also, we decided
to simulcast the Rabbit Race live on
Germany’s major private TV channels –
something that has never been done in
this way before. The implementation of
the live race was carried out smoothly in
collaboration with Endemol Beyond. I’m
convinced that the professionalism of all
our partners, as well as the collective
enthusiasm for the Rabbit Race, drove its
exceptional success.”
Thomas Hesse,
Head of Marketing,
Media Markt Germany,
redblue Marketing GmbH
The Rabbit Race concept combined branded content
marketing with real-time advertising, resulting in
much more than a traditional advertising campaign
alone would have delivered – this became a national
sports entertainment event and a media first.
From this innovative initiative, Media Markt generated
strong awareness during the busy Easter period, a
significant sales impact, and an enhanced reputation
as a forward-thinking brand that understands how to
entertain and connect with its market.
“Race like you’re on the run, #DerZermöhrer! So you win
the mediamarkt_de #OsterhasenRasen”
“@mediamarkt_de I had fun at the #OsterhasenRasen :)”
“Too bad you lost #Turboflausch, you fluffy Racing
Monster! I love you anyway hah”
37. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:FiatUrbanStories
Fiat Germany was looking for an original and
authentic TV content partnership to promote
the Fiat 500 and the new Fiat 500 CULT in
2014. The campaign needed to embody the
Italian spirit at heart, but without using any
clichés, and include a strategy to target both
female and male audiences successfully.
37
38. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:FiatUrbanStories
Fiat Germany and its agency partner
SevenOne AdFactory worked together to
develop a modern, fun-to-watch, magazine-
style branded TV programme – ‘Fiat Urban
Stories’.
The idea involved well-known TV host
Annemarie Carpendale meeting fascinating real
people, such as artists, magicians and athletes,
who were living their dream in the big city. She
would invite them into her iconic Fiat 500 –
Germany’s smallest and most intimate TV
studio – to talk about their passions, creating
relevant, genuine stories of our time that
organically involved the car.
Using the ProSiebenSat.1 network’s resources
and synergies, the weekly episodes were
produced by in-house TV production company
RedSeven, resulting in a credible editorial look
and feel, and greater relevance for TV viewers.
38
The distribution activity had a special twist. In order to address the
female and male target groups in the most effective way, a two-channel
strategy was chosen: eight episodes of six minutes each were
broadcast on sixx, Germany’s number one TV channel for women, and
another eight episodes aired on men's channel ProSiebenMAXX.
For sixx, the host met the likes of models, designers and
photographers, while on ProSiebenMAXX she interviewed racing
drivers, comedians, musicians and similar.
The branded entertainment show was advertised on German
mainstream TV channel ProSieben via 20-second teaser ad spots. In
addition, online ads on the network’s platforms complemented the
campaign.
During the on-air phase, viewers were encouraged to get involved in
sweepstakes (to win an appearance in an episode), social media
activities and test drive opportunities on the campaign’s website. The
TV episodes were also made available to watch on the site.
39. tv
online
o Market shares up to 55% higher than
average on sixx and ProSiebenMAXX
Av. 200,000 viewers per episode
(16 episodes, 16 re-runs)
300,000+ unique visits on campaign site
1.3 million+ Fiat Germany Facebook fans reached
15,000+ sweepstake participants per week
20,000+ registrations for test drives on campaign site,
including 1,000+ specific inquiries
Germany,Austria&Switzerland:FiatUrbanStories
Results
39
40. Germany,Austria&Switzerland:FiatUrbanStories
#
Outcome
40
“The ‘Fiat Urban Stories’
initiative is a great example of
how to leverage the power of
free TV and entertaining
storytelling perfectly for our
partner brands in a smart and
targeted way, putting branded
content at the heart of an
integrated communication
campaign.”
Petra Kroop,
Director Brand Integration,
SevenOne AdFactory
The unique, true-life
storytelling in this branded
entertainment campaign was
the optimal solution for the
iconic Fiat 500, in order to set
up a new and effective
communication strategy with
the brand’s potential
customers.
42. Italy:illycaffèASmallSectionoftheWorld
Challenge Founded in 1933, family-run Italian coffee company
illycaffè (illy) considers respect for the environment
and the people who nurture coffee a fundamental part
of doing business.
This principle has been put into practice every day for
decades. It’s evidenced by illy’s Università del caffè
(University of Coffee), where hands-on instruction is
provided at no cost to coffee growers, and in the
above-market prices illy guarantees to growers who
meet its quality standards. These efforts were
recognised when independent arbiter DNV (Det
Norske Veritas) conferred its first-ever global
Responsible Supply Chain Process Certification on illy
in 2011.
illy wanted to tell the story behind this endeavour, in
order to continue communicating its key brand
attributes to stakeholders around the world, as part of
its ongoing branded content marketing strategy. illy’s
technology and quality attributes had already been
conveyed in the documentary ‘Megafabbriche -
illy’ (Mega-factories) with National Geographic; and its
passion and heritage attributes in the TV series ‘Artisti
del Gusto’ (Artists of Taste), also on National
Geographic.
In 2013, illy joined forces with GreenLight Media &
Marketing to communicate the third brand pillar in the
series: sustainability.
42
43. Italy:illycaffèASmallSectionoftheWorld
illy agronomists are in contact with many
people as they travel the world for work, and
they often bring back extraordinary stories.
One such story struck a chord with illy’s
sustainability efforts – and raised awareness of
the fact that, while 70% of the world’s coffee is
grown and harvested by women, only 15%
have leadership positions in the business.
In the 1990s, the remote farming area around
the village of Biolley in Costa Rica was
devastated by a coffee crisis and a global
recession. After the men of the village left to
find work elsewhere, a group of 19 women
banded together and formed ASOMOBI (The
Association of Organized Women of Biolley),
a cooperative with a mission to develop local
production and management skills, and
ultimately to realise a prosperous and
sustainable future for their community.
After many setbacks, ASOMOBI eventually
managed to build a small coffee mill – the first
ever run by women in Costa Rica. Within a few
seasons, after a lot of hard work and the help
of the only female coffee exporter in the
country, they had learned enough to process
high-quality coffee. And they’ve been selling it
to illy ever since. Typically, around 90% of
ASOMOBI’s income is reinvested in the
community, which has further helped transform
people’s lives.
With illy on board as executive producer and
backer, GreenLight put together an award-
winning team to do justice to this inspiring
story, creating a documentary entitled ‘A
Small Section of the World’. The film follows
the impact of the ASOMOBI tale of
perseverance as it touches lives around the
globe, and shows how this resourceful group of
women overcame enormous difficulties to
change the culture within their small section of
the world.
Lesley Chilcott, who produced the Academy
Award-winning documentary ‘An Inconvenient
Truth’, directed the film.
During production, having noticed the rhythmic
sounds of the bean picking and coffee milling,
Lesley discussed the idea of music with the
crew. They suggested involving renowned
Costa Rican music artist and Grammy winner
Carlos ‘Tapado’ Vargas in the film. Multi-
Grammy winner and best-selling female rock
performer of all time Alanis Morissette was
also inspired by the ASOMOBI story. She
contributed an original song – ‘The Morning’
– co-written with and composed by Tapado.
A Small Section of the World dedicated
website was created to host all the content
from the project, including news about women
in the world of coffee.
43
44. Italy:illycaffèASmallSectionoftheWorld
The illy brand remained in the background,
allowing A Small Section of the World to speak
for itself.
The film trailer was made available online and
advertised via digital banner ads. A film poster
was created to promote cinema screenings,
and a comprehensive PR campaign
incorporated interviews and panel discussions
with Lesley Chilcott.
The world premiere of the film took place in
October 2014 at the Woodstock Film Festival,
and the film premiered in Costa Rica in
November 2014. It also featured at several
other film festivals, including the Savannah Film
Festival, the Indie Memphis Film Festival and
the documentary film festival DOC NYC.
Special screenings took place at the US State
Department and the United Nations in Geneva,
Switzerland. In addition, the film enjoyed week-
long theatrical runs in LA and New York.
The film has been broadcast on TV in 40
countries, including the Sundance Channel in
the US on Pivot TV. Global VOD distribution
involved all major digital platforms: Netflix,
Amazon, Playstation, XBOX, iTunes, Google
Play and more. A DVD is available on Amazon.
The music video about the making of The
Morning was also launched in November 2014
and the song is available for US$1.29 from
Spotify, iTunes and Spinshop. People are
encouraged to buy it in the knowledge that
sales proceeds are matched by the Ernesto
Illy Foundation. All funds then go towards
expanding the opportunities available to
women who want to advance themselves in the
world of coffee, including the provision of
scholarships for women around the world to
earn a Master in Coffee and Economic
Sciences degree.
44
45. Italy:illycaffèASmallSectionoftheWorld
Results Premiered at 5 film festivals,
United Nations in Geneva, US State Dept.
1.2 billion+ impressions from press coverage
8 million+ estimated film audience by November 2015
Won 2014 Brandchannel Award for Original Short;
International GrandPrix Advertising Strategies 2015
(Welfare/Charities) award;
47° Key Award & 2° Radio Key Award 2015
27 million+ followers on social media
45
46. Italy:illycaffèASmallSectionoftheWorld
Outcome #
46
A Small Section of the World represents an
ambitious branded entertainment project for
illy, taking 15 months from planning through
production to launch. Unlike traditional
communications campaigns, the film has a
very long life and will be seen by millions more
people over the coming years.
The award-winning team involved in the
project ensured the high quality of the film
and increased interest in viewing it.
By associating itself with the true story of
women who overcame adversity to build a
business and a future for themselves and their
families, illy has conveyed the ethical, long-
term, direct relationships it has with coffee
growers and its leadership in sustainability.
“We used a branded content
marketing approach because it
can communicate complex
concepts, although it should
always follow these basic rules:
the content must be real and
honest, the presence or
involvement of the brand must
be declared, and creativity must
be of a high standard in order to
entertain and excite.
“A Small Section of the World
tells an inspirational, true story
about real people – it embodies
the spirit of the effort required to
achieve sustainability.”
Paolo Bonsignore,
Marketing Director,
illy
48. NorthAmerica:ChipotleFarmed&Dangerous
Challenge Over the past few years, consumers have become
more and more concerned about how their food –
particularly fast food – is made and where its
ingredients come from. For example, a New York
Times 2013 poll revealed that three-quarters of
respondents expressed concern about Genetically
Modified Organisms in their food.
Chipotle Mexican Grill is committed to ‘Food With
Integrity’. In its restaurants, Chipotle serves food
made from the very best ingredients, raised with
respect for the animals, environment and farmers. The
company believes that the more consumers know
about their food and where it comes from, the more
likely they would be to choose a restaurant like
Chipotle.
The company decided that it needed a new marketing
campaign to change consumers’ attitudes towards
fast food, with the underlying aims to increase affinity
with existing Chipotle customers and attract new
customers to the brand, thereby increasing sales.
Piro, an award-winning branded entertainment,
content and storytelling creative and production
studio, was invited to the table to meet this challenge
– and added another one: to see if the campaign itself
could somehow be 'sustainable' in its own right,
generating revenue that could be used to offset its
costs.
48
49. NorthAmerica:ChipotleFarmed&Dangerous
Chipotle's and Piro's insight revealed that, in
order to change the way consumers think
about and eat fast food – and make them
seek food made with higher quality,
sustainably developed ingredients – they
would need to be made aware of the larger
issues of industrial farming and food
production.
This led Chipotle and Piro to develop a
campaign strategy centred on values rather
than product. The content was to target
people aged 14 to 44 who are socially aware
and interested in issue-driven entertainment.
Chipotle’s ‘Food With Integrity’ values, rather
than product images and messages, would
be integrated into the creative content, giving
everyone – from the production team to the
audience – a very strong sense of purpose.
The result was ‘Farmed and Dangerous’, a
satirical web series that pits hero Chip, a
sustainable farmer, against a group of people
whose job it is to put a positive spin on the
negative effects of industrialised farming.
Created by an award-winning team from the
world of film and TV, and populated with an
equally stellar cast, the show uses comedy to
unveil and explore the issues of industrial
agriculture in an entertaining way.
Taking the strategy to focus on Chipotle’s
values to what may seem an extreme, the
series is ostensibly unbranded. The subtitle ‘A
Chipotle original comedy series’ makes it clear
that Chipotle is behind the show, but the
emphasis of all the campaign content and
promotions is firmly on the issues surrounding
sustainable versus unsustainable food
production.
In relation to generating revenue to offset
costs, Piro negotiated a revenue share
agreement with Hulu on ads streamed within
the show. Ben & Jerry’s – a brand that shares
Chipotle’s eco-friendly philosophy – even
placed a specific media buy to run inside the
show. In addition, Tricon Films & Television is
currently selling Farmed and Dangerous around
the world as traditional entertainment, and has
already closed a deal in one foreign territory.
49
50. NorthAmerica:ChipotleFarmed&Dangerous
Part of the creative strategy was to drive
engagement through humour. The development
of strong characters and use of top talent in the
series also helped to raise the profile of the
show and rally influential voices to spread the
story.
In addition, Piro put considerable focus on
arming the audience with information (such as
'Food for Thought), so people could continue
to learn about the issue and share information
with their network. To support this activity, key
opinion leaders were given advanced content.
Seven key media channels were used to
distribute the campaign’s comprehensive
smorgasbord of content.
Hulu series:
On-demand TV channel Hulu was
the campaign's central media
channel. Four 30-minute episodes of the
Farmed and Dangerous show premiered on
Hulu over a four-week period.
Teaser campaign:
Chipotle released the show's
trailer on YouTube and secured a
feature in the New York Times business
section, timed to break with the Chipotle’s own
news release. On the same day, Chipotle’s
CMO gave the keynote address at a TV
industry conference, which drove additional
media attention.
One of the show’s lead characters, Buck
Marshall, also released a comedic full-page
open letter in the New York Times (‘Open Letter
to Everyone with Mouths’) where he made his
absurd case for industrial agriculture. The letter
encouraged readers to link to the campaign
website. Buck then paid Larry King a visit,
again blurring the lines between fiction and
reality.
Hollywood red carpet premiere
and Sunset Boulevard billboard:
To capture the attention of the
entertainment industry, influencers and
bloggers were invited to the show’s red carpet
premiere in Hollywood, which was
supplemented by an influencer screening in
New York and an online screening room. A
promotional billboard was also set up on
Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Huffington Post collaboration:
Piro, Edelman, Media Storm and
Chipotle created Food for
Thought, a native advertising section for the
Huffington Post website, which promoted
Farmed and Dangerous through interactive
content such as slide shows, surveys and
social content.
Chipotle trivia and branded
cups:
To drive restaurant traffic, Chipotle
launched an integrated trivia contest in which
viewers could win Chipotle food prizes based
on their knowledge of the Farmed and
Dangerous show. On Hulu, Buck Marshall
would interrupt every episode to offer a chance
to win free food by participating in a trivia
contest via SMS.
In Chipotle restaurants, a million daily
customers were handed F&D-branded drink
cups, a Chipotle first.
50
1
2
3
4
5
51. NorthAmerica:ChipotleFarmed&Dangerous
Websites:
Two main websites were created
to host various interactive
Farmed and Dangerous content. The
campaign website streamed episodes of the
show, hosted a trivia contest and enabled
audiences to interact with Buck Marshall
through Twitter. On Animoil, a fictitious
‘corporate website’, audiences were
presented with a graphical summary of
industrial agriculture.
Main characters on social
media:
The characters created for
Farmed and Dangerous were given a life
outside the show, through active accounts on
social media.
Piro tweeted from the account of lead
character Buck Marshall and developed a
strong following. Celebrities including Alec
Baldwin and Mark Ruffalo tweeted about
Buck and Farmed and Dangerous, and
environmental photographer Bill Cramer
regularly engaged with Buck.
All of these elements combined to drive
awareness and social interaction both online
and offline.
51
7
6
52. NorthAmerica:ChipotleFarmed&Dangerous
Results Most-watched brand-created series
during premiere week in Hulu history
Food for Thought = c.1 million unique monthly visitors &
50 million impressions, the most successful social impact
section in the history of The Huffington Post
1 billion+ media impressions from 300+ placements
97/100 overall Participant Index score
16.8% increase in Chipotle store revenues
Estimated sales return on investment = 629-883%
Key social media impressions:
134.1 million Twitter
6.2 million YouTube
2.7 million Facebook
1.8 million Google search
52
53. NorthAmerica:ChipotleFarmed&Dangerous
Outcome
53
The Farmed and Dangerous
campaign is an outstanding
example of the power of
values-based branded content
marketing. Because the
campaign championed an
important social issue as well,
the audience was an
especially willing source of
amplification, thereby leading
to greater effectiveness.
The project demonstrates that advertising can learn a lot from
TV in terms of the overall creative strategy. Through the trailer
and premiere screening, Farmed and Dangerous in essence
created a marketing campaign for a marketing campaign,
leveraging much of the TV industry's method. In addition,
there was larger focus placed on strong characters and
proven talent than there would tend to be in a typical
advertising campaign. All of these creative approaches
contributed substantially to the campaign's overall
effectiveness.
Farmed and Dangerous instantly became one of Hulu’s most
popular shows in terms of viewership, engagement and
approval. The pilot episode was one of the Top 5 long-form
videos viewed on Hulu on its premiere day, beating many
high-profile TV shows. It went on to become the most-
watched brand-created series during a premiere week in Hulu
history.
A Hulu post-wave viewer survey found that 93% of viewers
watched at least one full, 30-minute episode in its entirety –
far higher than the nine-minute average for watching TV
shows online cited by the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s
‘2014 Original Digital Video study’. 89% of viewers watched
more than one episode.
54. NorthAmerica:ChipotleFarmed&Dangerous
Outcome
#
#
#
54
“Farmed and Dangerous addresses issues that we
think are important – albeit in a satirical way – without
being explicitly about Chipotle. This approach allowed
us to produce content that communicates our values
and entertains people at the same time. This style of
‘unbranded’ content is, I think, the new frontier in
marketing, with storytelling at its heart.”
Mark Crumpacker,
Chief Marketing & Development Officer,
Chipotle;
Executive Producer of Farmed and Dangerous
“I hope Farmed and Dangerous
inspires other brands to stand
for something.”
Daniel Rosenberg,
Founding Partner,
Piro;
Executive Producer/Writer of Farmed and Dangerous
Farmed and Dangerous also received critical acclaim from a wide
range of sources and won a multitude of awards, including the
2014 CLIO award for Branded Entertainment and Content, and
three Cannes Lions for Branded Entertainment, Cyber, as well as
being shortlisted for Effectiveness.
The Participant Index was used to find out if the campaign had
changed people’s perceptions towards industrial agriculture, and
if it had encouraged them to take action based on these changed
perceptions. Farmed and Dangerous received a 97/100 overall
Participant Index score, the highest of any form of media
assessed by the index. It also received sub-scores of 99/100 for
social actions and 94/100 for emotional involvement. According to
the Participant Index results, "nearly 6 in 10 of those who
watched Farmed and Dangerous … engaged in some kind of
individual action."
In line with the campaign objectives to offset costs, Farmed and
Dangerous successfully generated its own revenues by selling
advertising space within its promotions and selling distribution
rights.
In terms of sales, Chipotle's store revenues grew by a significant
16.8% or US$539 million during 2014, compared to its
comparable increase in 2013 of 5.6% and the industry's projected
2014 growth rate of 4.4%. Farmed and Dangerous is estimated to
have generated a sales return on investment of 629-883%.
Most importantly, the popularity, engagement and approval
generated by Farmed and Dangerous successfully changed the
way people think about and eat fast food.
“By using scripted humour, we were able to deliver
sensitive messaging without being preachy.
Advertising creativity revolves around a single
message. Storytelling lets you make many points
within a theme with the benefit of teasing people
into wanting more – through plot and character.”
Tim Piper,
Founding Partner,
Piro;
Executive Producer/Director of Farmed and Dangerous
56. NorthAmerica:DuncanHinesInspirations
Challenge
Duncan Hines – the baked goods brand
founded in 1952 by the eponymous American
restaurant ratings pioneer – gave customer-
obsessed digital agency Tenthwave a
seemingly simple goal:
“Create a community for passionate and
aspiring bakers that inspires them to enjoy
baking a couple more times a year.”
However, in order to achieve this goal –
especially given the general decline in the
brand’s business category – Tenthwave’s
efforts would need to reach across channels,
platforms and media to motivate current
customers like never before.
56
57. NorthAmerica:DuncanHinesInspirations
For years, food brands have analysed data and
discovered that the vast majority of visits to
their websites are for recipes. This led them to
believe that people are looking for more and
better recipes.
However, Tenthwave learned that people visit a
food brand's recipe pages more often than its
other pages simply because that content is
more compelling than the typical 'about us' or
'history' sections that fill out most sites.
Adding more recipes to a food company
website doesn’t necessarily fulfil the consumer
need – it reacts to topline data. Any food brand
can easily add more recipes to its website; the
key to making customers choose your brand
over others is finding out why people are
looking at recipes.
Tenthwave started planning the Duncan Hines
project by using its customer obsession
methodology to survey 15,000 of Duncan
Hines’ existing 400,000 online Baker’s Club
members, and dozens more in face-to-face
interviews across the United States. The
Tenthwave system of qualitative ethnographic
research goes beyond dashboard analytics
and CRM surveys; it applies economics,
sociological and psychological understanding
to uncover insights that – when tied to an
adequate data set – create a clear direction
for any project.
What the agency learned through its
research was this: while most bakers
frequently do look online for recipes, what
they really crave is inspiration.
Tenthwave discovered that a recipe isn’t a
process; it’s an idea. When baking a cake,
you aren’t researching what temperature to
set the oven to or how many eggs to add. That
information is usually on the box or in your
head. You just want to know how you’re going to
make that cake look like Spiderman – and
perhaps if all that red food colouring will make a
five-year-old child sick. You want to know if your
creation requires any modifications to the stated
directions in order to turn out ‘yummy’.
57
58. NorthAmerica:DuncanHinesInspirations
Whether you’re an occasional baker preparing for
a child’s birthday party, or a regular, passionate
baker for whom baking is part of your identity,
paramount to the experience is that the outcome
must be enjoyed – both visually and taste-wise –
by the people who eat it.
If Tenthwave could inspire people, it knew it
could create occasions to bring them together
and build a more active baking community based
around Duncan Hines’ products. So the agency
took inspiration as its muse to develop a new
Duncan Hines social content strategy and a
digital platform to bring it to life.
Tenthwave’s research had revealed that Google
and Pinterest are currently the main sites that
bakers use to find inspiration. While Google
gives bakers every option under the sun,
Pinterest gives them an easy way to search for
options visually. The mash-up of these two
principles was the driving force behind the
architecture at the heart of the new platform’s
content-responsive website.
The site combines thousands of eye-catching,
mouth-watering baking ideas presented using
Pinterest-style visuals with predictive search to
create a personal recipe for branded content,
building cumulatively as visitors browse and
constantly refreshing as they search.
Site ‘inspirations’ (as recipes are now called)
have been organised, tagged and categorised
around seasonal and cultural terms – such as
‘green’, ‘New Year’, ‘fancy’, ‘pumpkin’ or
‘summer’ – that people search frequently and
commonly.
Original Duncan Hines branded content is
produced weekly on an ongoing basis in
Tenthwave’s Duncan Hines Content Studio,
and user-generated content is crowdsourced
daily from bakers themselves to satisfy all
possible inspirational needs. In addition, low-
cost and efficiently produced videos help
Duncan Hines launch new products, provide
helpful tips and spark further inspiration in the
baking community.
58
59. NorthAmerica:DuncanHinesInspirations
The ‘Inspirations’ platform launched in 2013,
and Tenthwave is following a long-term
strategy to increase the frequency of the social
content and build user participation with
minimal paid media amplification. The
emphasis is on the high quality of the content
and the strength of Duncan Hines’ existing
customer relationships via owned and earned
media, to inspire bakers to be interested,
engaged and involved in creating their own
communities through Duncan Hines.
Duncan Hines’ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
and Pinterest social channels are rich with
photographic and video content that
encourages visitors to bake, share, like,
comment on, query, contribute, discover,
bookmark and save their favourite creative
baking inspirations. These communities inspire
the original content that’s baked and
photographed in Tenthwave’s Content Studio.
Searching the main Duncan Hines website
triggers unexpected result combinations based
on the visitor’s own tastes. With over 100
natural search categories on the site, the
possibilities for content ideas are endless.
Constant monitoring of searches and other site
interactions guides how the brand adds and
groups inspirations based on visitors’ activity.
Visitors to the main website can also join the
online Baker's Club. For Club members, the
site is especially customised – it learns from
their habits and digital-social behaviour
(searches, profile, likes, shares, ratings, saves),
and anticipates their needs (events, birthdays,
holidays), to present them with the most
relevant information and inspirations. The more
information Duncan Hines has from a Baker’s
Club member, the more personalised the
member’s experience will be. For example, if a
Baker’s Club member has a preference for
chocolate, the site will begin to rank chocolate
higher during their future searches. Increased
engagement is therefore matched with
increased relevance and personalisation.
59
60. NorthAmerica:DuncanHinesInspirations
Results
Digital community tripled in <20
months to 1.75 million members
Top CPG brand on Facebook for
social interaction to June 2015
#1 most effective CPG Facebook
post to June 2015
Ranked in top 10 brands on Facebook,
above the likes of Hershey, the NFL and Disneyland
Average visit length = +50%
Engagement = +c.500% a year
Facebook fan base = +761%
Twitter following = +415%
Baker’sClubfeedback
“I love that the graphics
aren’t just pretty, they’re
informational.”
“Wonderful pics. Great variety
of choices. Placed it in my
‘Favorites’ immediately.”
(Source: Brand Satisfaction)
60
61. NorthAmerica:DuncanHinesInspirations
Outcome
#
#
61
“Tenthwave’s consumer expertise and Duncan
Hines’ rapport with our 15,000 Baker's Club
members drove extensive research, with
quantitative insights into bakers’ digital habits,
needs, baking lifestyle, likes and dislikes. We’re
gratified that bakers have embraced
duncanhines.com.”
Chris Slager,
former Executive Vice President & President,
Duncan Hines Grocery Division, Pinnacle Foods
In an environment where competition is getting tougher and
the baking category is in decline, Tenthwave’s customer-
obsessed approach to understanding why consumers choose
one brand over another determined the best way to meet
Duncan Hines’ objectives.
The Inspirations social strategy has successfully rolled out a
branded content platform as a vehicle to get more bakers
more engaged with and loyal to the Duncan Hines brand. By
reflecting and feeding the creativity and passion of the target
audience, Duncan Hines now has an active and growing
community of bakers who are inspired to share the brand’s
values and use more of its products.
Thanks to this ongoing project, Duncan Hines was named the
best-performing CPG brand on Facebook, based on total
interactions for the first half of 2015, and has been
consistently ranked as one of the top brands on Facebook
for social loyalty.
The content-responsive platform received One Show
recognition and has won several awards, including: One Club
Design Craft & User Experience award; Web Marketing
Association WebAward; W3 Gold Award, Food & Beverage
and Silver Award, Visual Appeal.
Finally, the Inspirations project proves that you don’t need to
be the biggest brand or have a healthy media budget to boost
your business; you just need high-quality, relevant content and
a strong customer relationship, based on an obsession with
understanding consumers and giving them what they want.
“The Duncan Hines team at Pinnacle Foods has
inspired us to create a site that reflects the
lifestyle and passion of avid bakers. Our
customer-obsessed approach really benefitted
from the affinity that Baker’s Club members
have for the brand – and each other.”
Drew Rayman,
Managing Partner,
Tenthwave
63. Scandanavia:PierreRobert#BIKEMYTIGHTS
Challenge
Pierre Robert is a well-known Nordic clothing
brand focused on underwear, hosiery and
sportswear. Its business model is different from
many of its competitors’ – its products are sold
in supermarkets, hypermarkets and
convenience stores.
But this sales channel presents a barrier to
hosiery purchase for two reasons:
1. People don’t like putting hosiery in the same
shopping basket as milk, cereal, vegetables
and other groceries. They’re inclined to be in
the wrong mindset, since underwear and
hosiery is more often bought in clothing
stores.
2. The hosiery selection offered in grocery
stores tends to be seen as an inferior quality,
unfashionable product.
Consequently, the level of trial for Pierre Robert
hosiery has been low. However, the repeat
purchase level is high among women who have
tried their products.
Agency partner OMD Sweden was challenged
with finding a way to kickstart more trials and
boost awareness of Pierre Robert hosiery and
its outstanding availability. Could they change
the perception of the brand?
63
64. Scandanavia:PierreRobert#BIKEMYTIGHTS
OMD’s team started thinking about how to
make Pierre Robert’s barrier its biggest selling
point.
An OMD Snapshot Survey of the target group
revealed two kinds of hosiery purchase:
planned and crisis. The crisis purchase – made
when women have torn their tights on the way
to, or in the middle of, social and work events,
when clothing stores are closed or too far away
– provided an interesting opportunity.
In order to turn this emergency situation into an
empathetic experience, Pierre Robert would
come to the rescue of new customers,
replacing their torn hosiery and highlighting the
brand’s convenient availability.
#BIKEMYTIGHTS was born.
The idea was that any woman in need of a new
pair of tights would take a photo, upload it to
Instagram with the hashtag #BIKEMYTIGHTS,
and add their location. A caped
#BIKEMYTIGHTS bicycle messenger would
then bring a new pair of Pierre Robert tights
directly to the woman’s party, dinner, et cetera.
A dedicated campaign website enabled
damsels in distress to track, see and speak to
the bike messenger who was making their
delivery via GoPro, Periscope and GPS. The
site also had a queue function to aggregate the
hashtagged photos, with one column showing
‘people in need’ and the other showing ‘saved
people’. In addition, this feature pinpointed
nearby purchase locations for people out of
reach of the delivery service, in order to
emphasise the convenience factor.
A local video ad targeting Stockholm was
created to explain the campaign fully and
extend its reach.
64
65. Participant no.
= 30% higher than goal
Social reach in Stockholm
(inc. weekend visitors):
Facebook = 341,000
(120% of target group)
Instagram = 60% of target group
Up to 1560 tights sampled
Instagram brand ambassadors
= 485,000 followers/63%
of the target group
on Instagram in Sweden
Scandanavia:PierreRobert#BIKEMYTIGHTS
Results
The campaign was restricted to one location –
Stockholm – during specific time periods (6pm to
midnight on Fridays and Saturdays in October
2015), in order to manage delivery logistics, stock
levels and a tight budget. There was a potential
reach of 259,000 people in the relevant target
group in Stockholm.
Digital channel distribution was used with a
mobile-first focus.
To engage the target group and convey the
‘coolness’ of the campaign and the brand, seven
of the most influential Instagram fashion and style
bloggers with the largest followings in Sweden
were recruited as brand ambassadors. They each
recorded a high-quality fashion video
describing the #BIKEMYTIGHTS campaign and
posted it on their accounts, encouraging the target
group to hashtag #BIKEMYTIGHTS and try the
Pierre Robert brand.
To coordinate brand awareness, at the same time
as a new Pierre Robert TV ad was aired
nationwide, the #BIKEMYTIGHTS video ad
targeting Stockholm was placed online on
YouTube, Facebook, SmartClip and PlayAd.
65
66. Scandanavia:PierreRobert#BIKEMYTIGHTS
Outcome
66
The #BIKEMYTIGHTS campaign combined branded
content, experiential and advertising elements to turn an
offline event into a live online event, focusing on digital
media. It has achieved extremely high reach for an
activity that was live for only six hours on two evenings
over three weekends, targeted at a niche audience, and
produced on a very limited budget.
Given the campaign parameters, OMD couldn’t use its
standard measurement tools. Instead, it tracked the
campaign via Facebook, YouTube, SmartClip and
PlayAd cookie data.
OMD also plans to interview some of the women who
engaged with the recently finished campaign, in order to
answer the million-dollar question: “Have participants
changed their perception of Pierre Robert, and do they
associate the brand with convenience?”
68. Scandanavia:WorldFoodProgramme805MillionNames
Challenge
Hunger is the number one risk to health
worldwide – greater than AIDS, malaria and
tuberculosis combined. Yet this issue doesn’t
make news headlines.
Norway’s World Food Programme (WFP) is
the world’s largest humanitarian agency,
delivering food to more than 80 million people
suffering from hunger worldwide – all of whom
have a name, a voice and a story to tell. Yet the
WFP remains the United Nation’s best-kept
secret.
Making ending hunger a higher priority for
people is crucial for WFP to secure funding.
WFP asked award-winning creative agency
Forsman & Bodenfors to create a new
campaign. Be On / AOL was asked to be the
media and video partner, while Swedish agency
Matter led content integration. Film production
company New Land and web design agency
Lundgren & Lindqvist were also part of the
core team behind this project.
68
69. Scandanavia:WorldFoodProgramme805MillionNames
The strategy was to put world hunger on the
agenda by connecting the people who can
make a difference with the influencers who
could create belief in the WFP cause.
The project team combined the most
democratic of all media (digital) with the most
international of languages (moving image) to
develop a new branded content campaign:
‘805 Million Names’.
The core of the campaign was a worldwide
media event created by (temporarily) tattooing
50 names on famous footballer Zlatan’s
Ibrahimovic’s body. These were names of
people he’d never met, but still wanted to keep
close – some of the 805 million people suffering
from hunger.
On February 14 2015, Zlatan’s football team
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) played against Caen
at Parc Des Princes in France. Two minutes
into the match, Zlatan scored a spectacular
goal, took off his shirt and showed the whole
world his new tattoos.
Pictures of Zlatan with his shirt off started to
travel the Internet and became headline news
minutes after it happened. This was turned into
a WFP-branded video that served as hero
content throughout the campaign.
69
70. Scandanavia:WorldFoodProgramme805MillionNames
At 3pm the day after the match, PSG and
Zlatan hosted a press conference in Paris,
revealing the story behind the tattoos – which
had been kept secret until then. This press
conference kickstarted the global pro bono
media strand of the campaign.
Meticulously planned and orchestrated, the
media and PR strategy involved reaching
people on whatever media platform they use,
integrating with that platform, and delivering
the best possible user experience.
Thousands of publishers and influencers
were identified and approached in a timely
sequence. The hero video was launched on
more than 20 different online video publisher
platforms (traditional and broadcast),
including the likes of YouTube, Facebook
Native Video, AOL On, Youku and Daily
Motion.
All the major social media networks and
platforms were used, with content seeded
across long- and mid-tail blogs, websites,
journals and publishing houses. Each new
conversation that was generated was
supported by a social feed. Additional stories
were collected, amplified and distributed to a
global PR platform.
And all this without spending anything on
media.
The event on the field was the catalyst that
sparked worldwide attention. With Zlatan as
the focal point, social media messages then
drove the engagement of fans and
journalists, and the video served as the initial
platform that provided a common reference
point across the globe. Eventually, an organic
conversation consisting of responses from all
areas – Zlatan, the press, hungry children in
Kenya – evolved into the key content
ecosystem that connected the hungry and
poor with the people who could make a
difference.
70
71. 71
877 million+
people reached
16 million+ video views
Almost 4 million social
interactions in two weeks
3000+ news articles
€10.7 million total estimated
earned media value
Won multiple awards inc.
D&AD 2015 Yellow Pencil,
Cannes Lions 2015 Gold,
CLIO Sports Grand Prix 2015
Scandanavia:WorldFoodProgramme805MillionNames
Results
72. Scandanavia:WorldFoodProgramme805MillionNames
Outcome #
#
72
The WFP’s ‘805 Million Names’ branded content campaign starring
Zlatan Ibrahimovic set a new agenda for celebrity-influenced viral
success across multiple platforms and media. With its strategic use of
brand- and user-generated content and channels, Be On succeeded in
creating a platform for dynamic reaction and interaction, driving
conversation and engagement. The result was mass awareness of the
WFP’s key issues.
Social media influencers who joined in and spread the campaign
message to their own millions of fans included: David Beckham,
Caroline Wozniacki, Avicii, David Luiz, Enrique Iglesias, FC Barcelona,
Jonsi, Novak Djokovic, Ricardo Kaka and many others.
One of the most powerful responses to the campaign came from a
group of children in Kenya: “Zlatan Ibrahimovic, this is a response
video to the World Food Programme campaign 805 Million Names.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, we know of what you speak.
#Wearethenamesonyourbody #805millionnames.”
This most clearly shows the borderless opportunities of online
campaigning when it comes to reaching users wherever they are, and
what can be achieved when you create branded content and
conversational hooks that people can tap into and respond to.
“By using a branded content approach
instead of a traditional media approach, we
could convey the campaign message in a
way that enabled both journalists and
individuals to become publishers of their
own statements – bringing ownership of the
cause way beyond the WFP.”
Jakob Stigler,
Managing Director Nordics,
Be On/AOL
“The campaign shows that creativity is a
fundamental instrument to build all
together a #ZeroHunger world.”
Marina Catena,
Director, United Nations
World Food Programme,
Paris
74. Scandanavia:BaroneRicasoliVininspiratören
Challenge
Barone Ricasoli is the oldest private winery in
Italy, the second oldest in the world and the
largest winery in the Chianti Classico area in
Tuscany. It has a strong, centuries-old heritage
of both quality and innovation.
Working closely over the years with Barone
Ricasoli and Baron Francesco Ricasoli (the man
behind the business), the Swedish wine importer
WineWorld has helped the brand gain many
fans in Sweden. Barone Ricasoli is one of the
best-selling wine brands in the country, which
has become its most important market.
However, with an ageing customer base and a
rapidly changing media landscape, Barone
Ricasoli needed to reach a new generation of
consumers. To address this, Barone Ricasoli and
WineWorld worked with digital communications
agency Pronto and influencer marketing
platform provider Traackr to create a deeply
engaging digital brand presence.
The campaign objectives were to attract a
younger audience to make a real connection
with the brand, and to drive in-store sales.
74
75. Scandanavia:BaroneRicasoliVininspiratören
WineWorld and Pronto developed the project
concept ‘Vininspiratören’. It hinged on a
branded ‘social story’ that would generate
online engagement with the target audience
through emotive storytelling, enabling new
customers to really connect with the life of the
brand.
The idea was to post a unique job vacancy
online, inviting applicants aged 25+ to compete
for a special winemaker position at the Barone
Ricasoli vineyard in Tuscany. The winner would
spend a few days at Brolio, the castle within
the vineyard, creating their very own signature
wine that would then be sold as a limited
edition product at Systembolaget national wine
outlets in Sweden.
A digital influencer plan was developed for the
project, in order to spread the word about the
job opening, generate conversations, and
encourage applicants to become influencers
themselves through social content and sharing.
During the project, applicants submitted their
wine concepts to a campaign website. They
could share photos and posts on social
networks using a personal hashtag to support
their application and gain votes. Four key
Swedish wine bloggers – all influential
members of the public, rather than industry
professionals or traditional experts – were
selected to be jury members to choose six
finalists. The Baron then joined the jury to
choose the winner.
The applicant who finally got the
vininspiratör job was Richard. He created his
idea of a classic Tuscan wine, ‘RF till FR’,
exclusively for the Swedish market.
75
76. Scandanavia:BaroneRicasoliVininspiratören
The social story was continuously activated
through social media content, influencer
engagement, digital PR and a YouTube video
series showcasing the making of the
winner’s wine from grape to bottle.
The campaign involved digital influencers at
every stage of the storytelling and combined
scaled influencer outreach with highly
targeted influencer tactics.
Four top Swedish wine influencers were
selected to be jury members, with the extra
incentive that they would travel to Tuscany
with the winner, meet the Baron and
contribute to creating the new wine. A wider
group of online influencers and their
communities were also activated to drive
traffic to the job posting and get involved in
the project (by applying for the job, spreading
the news, discussing what kind of wine they
would make, et cetera). This shared the
passion for the story and the brand.
Finally, job applicants were encouraged to
share the project news in order to gain votes
from their own networks, and through this
process they became influential themselves –
some eventually ranking higher than the jury!
Traackr’s influencer marketing platform was
used throughout the campaign to:
• Understand ongoing discussions in
Sweden relating to Tuscany, wine, food,
Italy and culture.
• Identify and build relationships with key
online influencers in the Swedish wine
community, and invite them to participate
in the jury and the campaign promotion.
• Track influencer brand mentions and use
of campaign hashtags; engage in
conversations throughout the campaign.
• Monitor and analyse results in real-time;
measure Barone Ricasoli’s share of voice
over time against competitors.
76
77. 77
700 applications for
winemaker job
2.5 million people reached
7.5 million social
media impressions
40,000+ online interactions
20,000+ video views
New wine launch
400% return on investment
via estimated PR value
61,000 campaign website visits:
- 60% from mobile and tablet
- 02:16 average dwell time
Scandanavia:BaroneRicasoliVininspiratören
Results
80. Scandanavia:DNBThe24-HourAdBreak
Challenge Norway’s largest bank, DNB, knows that
modern life is hectic. Banking and financial
issues – paying bills, budgeting, worrying,
dreaming the big dreams – all come to life late
in the evening when the busy day slows down.
That’s why people need access to their bank
potentially 24/7.
Embodying DNB’s core value of ‘Helpful’,
DNB’s client promise is to be present every
day, whenever it really counts the most for the
customer.
But DNB was perceived as primarily a business
bank, and too few customers knew that DNB
could give them answers to their questions 24
hours a day.
DNB challenged agency partners Vizeum and
Try/Apt to devise a new campaign that would
increase awareness among the Norwegian
population of DNB’s 24-hour customer service.
80
81. Scandanavia:DNBThe24-HourAdBreak
The team came up with a branded content
campaign strategy that would fulfil three key
objectives:
1. In order to reinforce that DNB is a bank for
everyone, the campaign would involve all
kinds of people from all walks of life.
2. To reflect the core theme of customer
service in an accessible and entertaining
way, and fulfil people’s need for help, the
campaign content would involve people
giving advice – and not only banking advice.
3. The campaign would highlight the 24-hour
aspect of DNB’s customer service by
running for 24 hours.
Content creation for the campaign was actually
content co-creation – the entire Norwegian
population was invited, through a pre-
campaign on TV and social media, to share
their best general life advice in short video
clips. More than 3,000 pieces of advice were
collected, ranging from “Don’t play with the
trolleys at IKEA” from a young girl, to “Eat well,
dance more” from an elderly couple, and
everything in between.
This consumer-generated content was then
compressed into 1,000 selected pieces of film.
In addition, nine mini-documentaries featuring
interesting spokespeople sharing good advice
were produced.
Finally, Vizeum booked 24 hours’ worth of TV
ad breaks in a single day on TV2, Norway’s
largest commercial TV channel, creating ‘The
24-Hour Ad Break’.
81
82. Awareness of DNB’s 24-hr
customer service rose from
35% pre-campaign to 72%
post-campaign
25% reduction in TV2 central
ad break drop-out rate during
top show ‘Idol’, compared with
previous week
200,000+ people engaged with
DNB via social media
Won D&AD 2015 Graphite Pencil
for Integrated & Innovative Media
Scandanavia:DNBThe24-HourAdBreak
Results
The campaign started at 6pm on TV2’s most
popular day of the week, Friday, and ran during all
of the channel’s ad breaks for the next 24 hours.
Each piece of consumer-generated advice was
shown only once and, during each ad break, DNB
reminded viewers that the bank is available 24
hours a day.
Airing the equivalent of 2.5 hours of pure
consumer-generated content on national TV in this
way compelled the people involved in the
campaign (and their friends and families) to watch
and talk about the campaign. During the 24-hour
period when the advice films ran on TV, DNB
experienced a large amount of feedback on Twitter
and Facebook.
82
83. Scandanavia:DNBThe24-HourAdBreak
Outcome
SocialFeedback
“The ad breaks were more
entertaining than the
TV programmes!”
“I’d love to see this
every Friday.”
“Kudos to DNB for
groundbreaking marketing.”
83
‘The 24-Hour Ad Break’ used a traditional media
channel (TV) in a very bold and untraditional
manner, in combination with user-generated
content and social media, to generate high
awareness of DNB’s 24-hour customer service.
In addition, the campaign engaged the country’s
population in a way that reinforced the fact that
the bank understood and cared about the busy
lives of both their business and personal
customers.
Within a population of only 5 million, more than
200,000 people from all walks of life tweeted,
commented, and shared advice and opinions.
The comments about the campaign were
extremely positive.
85. Scandanavia:MicrosoftMEW365
Challenge Danish indie rock band Mew – hailed as a
world-class act by the likes of U2’s Bono and
Michael Stipe of R.E.M. – wanted to create
something unique directly with fans all over
the world. But, despite the rise of social
media, the band has always found it an
unsolvable challenge to interact directly with
its more than 200,000 followers. Co-creating
something across the world seemed almost a
technological impossibility – until the band
realised that the solution was right under its
nose, in some of the world’s most famous
software.
At the other end of Copenhagen, the
Microsoft Denmark team was trying to find
new ways to highlight the real-time
communication potentials of Microsoft Office
365 to small and medium-sized businesses.
Office was simply perceived as the ‘classics’
– Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Microsoft
wanted to challenge this perception by
enabling users to collaborate online in the
wide range of possibilities that the Office 365
solution offers, turning the collaboration itself
into the marketing.
That’s when music content and partnership
agency Volume took the lead.
85
86. Scandanavia:MicrosoftMEW365
Volume brought Microsoft Denmark and Mew
together to establish a creatively symmetrical
partnership, and developed a new branded
content marketing campaign entitled
‘MEW365’.
The idea? Through Mew, Volume invited
thousands of fans worldwide to join in a
challenging experiment: to co-create and
participate in a music video for the song ’The
Night Believer’.
Using OneNote from Microsoft Office 365 as
the technical platform for the project, Volume
created an online co-creative community to
bring Mew and their fans closer together. The
band and their fans shared notebooks,
drawings and discussions, and fans were given
extra creative assignments beyond the music
video performance.
At the same time, Volume communicated with
the fans about the rather complex co-creation
process around the making of the music video.
This involved fans taking pictures of
themselves and influencing the soundtrack by
recording the song along with lead singer
Jonas Bjerre. In this way, everyone played a
part in the final music video.
More than 2,000 fans from all corners of the
world signed up for the project. 1,000 individual
contributions from 65 different countries were
then chosen to appear in the final clip.
Volume produced a behind-the-scenes film of
the whole experience, and showcased it with
other key MEW365 content on the campaign
website.
86
87. 2.9 million+ people
reached worldwide
520,000+ interactions
565,000+ music video views
Double-digit Office 365
sales growth
Scandanavia:MicrosoftMEW365
Results
Volume’s communications strategy distinguished
between brand-owned and earned social media
channels.
Mews’ and Microsoft’s newsletters and owned social
media channels – such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
and Instagram – were used to kickstart invitations to
fans to join the project, and to announce project news.
They boosted and complemented each other.
During the co-creation process, fans not only
interacted with each other and reached out to their
favourite band via Microsoft communication solutions,
collaborating to produce the core branded content;
they also used their own social media channels to
share project and video content and news, generate
traffic to the campaign website (“I sang with Jonas –
listen here”), and tag themselves in the final video.
A PR campaign amplified the news of the project and
its innovative partnership, spreading the word further
through international music influencers, including
Pitchfork, Exclaim, Stereogum, Diffuser, Under the
Radar and many more.
Norwegian multinational telecommunications
company Telenor, a Microsoft Office 365 business
partner, also helped to promote the project and
increase engagement. It hosted the behind-the-
scenes video to highlight the business value
propositions of Office 365 in its lead-generating
campaigns.
87
88. Scandanavia:MicrosoftMEW365
Outcome #
#
88
The MEW365 branded content partnership
resulted in remarkable reach and brand
endorsement for both Mew and Microsoft.
Using Office 365 as a flexible online platform
for a creative project exposed its features and
possibilities in a new and effective way, as
noted by Telenor. As a result of MEW365,
Microsoft Denmark experienced strong
revenue growth, brand perception and PR
both in print and online. In June 2015, the
company saw double-digit, year-on-year
growth in Office 365 sales.
The campaign also showed that Mew is not
just a band, it’s a small-to-medium business
(SMB). The fan experience lived out in Office
365 solutions gave business decision makers
in the SMB sector a cool and edgy example to
identify with.
“Seeing Mew and the project team use our
standard Office 365 technology in this
innovative, ground-breaking and creative
collaborative way is fantastic.”
Aaren Ekelund,
Business Group Lead, Office 365,
Microsoft Denmark
“We have fans spread out all over the
world, and for a long time we’ve been
looking for ways to form a creative
collaboration with them – where you can
take part whether you are in Denmark,
Mexico, or Thailand.”
Mew
90. SouthAmerica:EmbraturEncuentrosenBrasil
Challenge
Embratur (the Brazilian Tourism Board)
wanted to promote Brazil as a great destination
to people all over Latin America.
They asked their agency partner beGIANT
Advertainment to create a high quality
campaign that would showcase locations
across the country, reach a vast audience and
inspire people to visit Brazil – all while
optimising the campaign budget. No short
order!
90
91. SouthAmerica:EmbraturEncuentrosenBrasil
The team at beGIANT came up with a
comprehensive branded content project never
before seen in Latin America: ‘Encuentros en
Brasil’ (Encounters in Brazil).
The idea behind the project involved six of the
biggest names in Latin music: Natalia
Lafourcade, Grammy award winner from
Mexico; Jorge Drexler from Uruguay, who won
an Oscar for Best Original Song; Kevin
Johansen from Argentina; Alejandro y Maria
Laura from Peru; Francisca Valenzuela from
Chile; and Andrea Echeverri from Colombia.
The artists were invited to take a journey
around Brazil, visiting two destinations each.
As they travelled, each artist recorded a song
about the country and shot a music video.
During this activity, a range of Brazil-centric
content was developed for the project:
1. The behind-the-scenes footage of the
artists’ trips was transformed into 12 30-
minute episodes to create a reality TV show
– the first ever made for a Brazilian brand. It
was hosted by famous Brazilian singer,
composer and actor Paulinho Moska.
2. The journey footage was also turned into 12
travel diary digital video clips.
3. Music videos featuring Brazilian
landscapes
4. A music album
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Jorge Drexler : Desde el Día en
Que Brasil Me Abrió Sus Brazos
(feat. Paulinho Moska)
Paulinho Moska : Flores de Abrazos
92. 156 hours of branded content on TV
(= 18,000+ 30-second ads)
Free media valued at
US$87 million
41 million organic Twitter impressions
415,000 organic likes on
Facebook and Instagram
300+ editorial articles in 21 countries
SouthAmerica:EmbraturEncuentrosenBrasil
Results
Major network HBO licensed the reality TV
show exclusively for two years, and distributed
the content in 53 countries and territories
throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
The show was broadcast in 2014 – at no cost
for transmission – on seven premium channels,
to a qualified audience with high purchasing
power.
The ‘Encuentros en Brasil’ music album was
released in July 2014 via iTunes, Google Play,
Spotify, Deezer and other distribution channels.
In addition, the travel diary videos were made
available on YouTube and Vimeo, and via an
app for Facebook and mobile phones.
In the lead-up to the TV show launch, while the
content was still being recorded, the artists
posted comments about their experiences on
social media. beGIANT coordinated these
posts using the hashtag #encuentrosenbrasil,
in order to help engage the artists’ vast number
of existing followers and fans. In only one day,
for example, 6.6 million people were impacted.
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93. SouthAmerica:EmbraturEncuentrosenBrasil
#
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Outcome
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“The project generated
awareness all over Latin
America, as well as the
optimisation of the client’s
budget.”
Guga Lemes,
CCO,
beGIANT
‘Encuentros en Brasil’ was a milestone
branded content project. The reality TV show –
the first ever created for a Brazilian brand –
represents a new format for the broadcast of a
tourist destination internationally.
Because of the show’s relevance for the HBO
network, there were no media costs for the
agency or client. Instead, the network paid for
the content and this helped cover the
production costs.
The project has won two awards – at El Ojo
Festival and Cristal Festival – and a second
season of the TV show, with new artists and
destinations, is being planned.
“Making branded content
for TV is a great
challenge. Being in the
vanguard of this, together
with our client Embratur,
makes us very proud.”
Felipe Barahona,
CEO,
beGIANT
95. SouthAmerica:GeneralElectricCreativeNewsroom
Challenge In 2014, General Electric (GE) was poised to
open a new Global Research Center (GRC) in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – the latest of its nine
GRCs around the world – with a focus on
subsea oil and gas exploration. The Brazilian
GRC represented an investment of US$500
million in the country.
The communication activity for the official
opening event needed to reflect not only the
magnitude of this investment, but also the
strategic importance of hosting a facility for
Brazilian scientific and technological
development.
The main challenge for integrated
communications agency Edelman Significa
was to deliver relevant digital branded content
for the launch event in real time to GE’s key
audiences: cutting-edge engineers,
government bodies, potential clients, science
and technology professionals, and the GE team
around the world. The digital branded content
had to include a multitude of facts surrounding
the GRC’s Rio launch and what it truly
represents for Brazil and Latin America.
How could the agency engage the relevant
online audiences via GE's digital channels?
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