AUCKLAND, Friday: Colenso BBDO, PHD Media and Good Oil have created a groundbreaking new campaign – called Friendvertising – for New Zealand low-cost telco Skinny.
“In New Zealand, everyone knows someone who knows someone,” said Colenso comms director Joe Carter, introducing the campaign.
“So, we created 46 unique TV ads fronted by people New Zealanders might know. A highly targeted direct campaign that operates at a national broadcast level.
“We’d much prefer it if you could feature all 46 of the ads individually.”
Yeah right, Joe!
- Try this (the Youtube channel with all 46 of the ads)
Here’s the Colenso release …
Hello friends and/or industry colleagues,
Skinny may not have the biggest advertising budgets, a legacy of innovation, or the heft of their beloved competitors in the telco market.
But what they do have is an army of customers who love them. So much so, that Skinny have won Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice Award in the mobile category 5 years in a row. These are lovely, happy customers who would gladly recommend Skinny to their friends and/or family.
Which is where Friend-vertising comes in.
Considering that word of mouth is 83% more effective than advertising, and that it seems like everyone in New Zealand knows someone who knows someone, Skinny’s new Friend-vertising campaign aims to reach everyone in New Zealand with an ad for Skinny fronted by a person they know.
A highly targeted direct campaign that operates at a national broadcast level.
Friend get nation, if you will.
To do this, the campaign stars literally heaps of happy Skinny customers, each fronting their own highly produced audio-visual commercial, imploring their friends and family to join them on Skinny.
In each, a happy customer stands alone in a two-person, friendship scenario – like riding a see saw, water skiing, or playing chess – and talks about how Skinny’s mobile network covers 98% of places Kiwis work and live. How Skinny are a Kiwi brand, run by Kiwis for Kiwis. That they have hundreds of thousands of the nation’s happiest mobile customers. And how they’ll do anything to save their customers money.
Hindi, Cantonese, Samoan, and Sign Language versions of the ad are running in prime-time TV slots without subtitles.
“This was the most complex campaign to ever blow through our building.”
Out of home placements feature recognisable faces from the community and are geo-located to reach those who are most likely to recognise them.
In social media, those who missed out on starring in the TV and out of home executions can generate their own online ads, targeted to their friends and family.
The campaign launches this week with the broadcast of 46 unique TV ads, each one featuring completely different talent.
15 unique TV executions ran on the first night alone.
A first for NZ.
Colenso producer Natasha Gill said: “This was the most complex campaign to ever blow through our building. Our tiny brains would melt every time we did the math on fitting so many people into a normal production timeline. But it was definitely worth it. Probably?”
PhD Media’s Rachel Leyland said: “This has been the most ridiculously hectic, but amazing campaign to work on. It’s personalisation en masse, effectively turning out talent into our channels, with our job being to get maximum reach and LOLs with the people they know.”
Skinny brand lead Ally Young said: “In a new world of social isolation and working from home, connection to our friends and family are more important than ever.
“This new campaign feeds directly into that insight – and is a playful take on the importance of social connection.”
The campaign went live a week ago on Sunday 22 March. Keep an eye out for someone you know.
CREDITS
Client: Skinny
Chapter Lead – Brand: Ally Young
Brand Partner – Social: Hunter Haines
Chapter Lead – Social: Frith Wilson-Hughes
Paid Social Partner: Janine Casis
Automation Analyst: Otto Gebhar
Skinny Product Owner: Steve Imm
Customer Marketer: Krissy Martin
Skinny Mobile Product Owner: Shannon Evans
E2E Journey Specialist: Steve Hay
Chapter Lead – Skinny DevOps: Gareth Killip
Customer Marketer – Trade: Rhys Huber
Legal Business Partner: Emma Biggs
Chapter Lead – Performance Marketing: Ryan Drew
Agency: Colenso BBDO
Media Agency: PHD Media
Trade and Digital Agency: Platform 29
Production Company: Good Oil
Director: Dave Wood
Executive Producer: Lee Thompson
Executive Producer: Andrew McLean
DOP: Crighton Bone
Editor: Simon Njoo
Colourist: Pete Richie
Online Editor: Richard Betts at Blockhead
Sound Design: Liquid Studios
Sound Design: Craig Matuschka
Music Producer: Tamara O’Neill
Music Producer: Shirleyanne McDonald-Shaw
Stills Production: Match
Photographer: Troy Goodall
Retoucher: Jason King at SixtyFour
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