Cannes Lions
INFLUENCER, London / PEPSICO / 2020
Overview
Entries
Credits
Background
With the aim of capturing the attention of the nation and securing their position as the most loved brand, Walkers partnered with one of the UK’s most iconic pop groups, The Spice Girls, and collaborated with their comeback tour.
As we were working as part of a wider media strategy, we had to determine which social mediums would be best utilized within this campaign. After in-depth analysis undertaken by our team, we found that Instagram would work most effectively alongside other traditional forms of marketing in the brand’s wider strategy. Using this platform would also allow the brand to target and engage with the notoriously hard to reach Gen-Z audience. Because of this, we knew we would spark an exciting conversation within this demographic, and meet the objective of driving awareness and participation to the #BestEverFan competition.
Idea
The creative was led by how we could best compliment the wider media strategy; by executing an effective campaign that was part of the bigger picture, we would increase the visibility and subsequently, the commercial success of both brands.
Our primary narrative focused on the #BestEverFan competition, which offered fans the chance to win a VIP experience and meet the Spice Girls on tour. To help meet the brand’s objective of reaching the nation, we were tasked with targeting and engaging with the Gen-Z demographic. To achieve this, we asked Arron Crascall and Kevin Freshwater to create some truly creative content that would encourage their highly engaged audiences to take part in the competition, thus creating a snowball effect of engagement. We knew that combining creators who already had a strong friendship would be an added bonus; working on a collaborative piece of content always leads to great performance.
Strategy
Selecting the right content creators, who could confidently capture the attention of the nation, was of paramount importance. Using technology, our team worked with Agency UK to shortlist creators who could achieve exactly this. Each creator was chosen based on their audience’s brand affinity and their deep metrics, such as saves and shares. Crascall and Freshwater were the perfect option as they have large and highly engaged communities, and a proven history of creating humorous content that their followers engaged with well. For example, Kevin, who has an audience of 270,000, received over 2,100,000 views on his Instagram content.
We knew that utilising Instagram as a platform would help us successfully target the Gen Z demographic. However, with the unexpected addition of Kevin’s organic post on TikTok, we knew we would maximise reach within the Gen Z demographic and amplify the conversation around the #BestEverFan competition.
Execution
It was crucial that our campaign timeline fit within the wider media strategy for the execution to be successful. To achieve this, Agency UK and our team had to have a clear understanding of how the Gen Z audiences engaged with Instagram as a social channel. Once this was fully understood, we organised all activations to reach peak impact at the same time. This ensured that a powerful execution would be delivered alongside the wider marketing efforts.
Thanks to the success of their content, both creators were asked to take part in a TV advert. This advert, which appeared during the ‘Britain’s Got Talent Final’, reached over 12,000,000 people. We knew their recognisable faces would only increase relevance with a younger audience and enhance the memorability of the wider campaign activity. Because of this, we would continue to drive awareness and participation to the competition.
Outcome
Our creators alone delivered 20 pieces of content, and when they posted, their audience definitely listened (well, watched), with 9.5 million impressions and 7.6 million views. More specifically, the content hit over half a million engagements, including 430,000 likes, 6,000 comments, and 43,000 saves (on Instagram alone!). It is clear that the content creators played a crucial role in driving opinion and connecting with conversation-starters to amplify the partnership between two of the UK’s most iconic brands.
In addition, Kevin’s organic content via TikTok reached a 698,000 wide audience, gained a 920,000 impression rate and 708,000 views. In light of these results, we believe that this campaign represents the strongest social thinking and most effective use of content creators, and therefore highlights how our team is committed to providing only the strongest strategic influencer marketing solutions out there.
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