At the time of launch, Snapchat wasn’t really set up to cater to branded content. Tinnyvision was in breach of Snapchat’s terms of use on two fronts. Firstly our snaps were not live. We shot in advance and sent the series of snaps to each new viewer on the day they followed. To appear authentic, snaps were cued to send at a time that matched the time of day in the video. Secondly, we were using Snapchat to hold a branded message. At the time of launch, this was not something they offered.

We overcame these two hurdles by working directly with Snapchat to negotiate a unique, free, use case.

The subject matter presented another hurdle. To be authentic, our story had to include realistic depictions of illegal drug use. Marijuana is illegal in NZ. In traditional mediums, this would be a risk a New Zealand government agency could not wear. Snapchat, by its very nature, provided us a great solution. Snaps are ethereal. View them once, and their gone. No incriminating evidence!

50,000 young kiwis admit to driving stoned. They don’t want to hear marijuana slows reactions and makes driving dangerous. And when they hear it from the government, they tune out immediately. The NZTA needed to get them interested and invested. So that they would actually consider the message.

Enter Tinnyvision, a group of young kiwi guys Snapchatting their stoner sessions.

Add them and they’ll send you snaps. Watch them then they’re gone. No incriminating evidence.

We got the trusted editors of the sites stoners hang out on to endorse following Tinnyvision. Throughout the day, followers were entertained by the guys getting stoned, and their reactions getting slow. 11 snaps later, the guys decide to go for a drive. A girls walks out. The driver is slow to react. He hits her. She hits the windscreen. Viewers couldn’t watchi it again. We left them to freak out for just a minute before sending out one final snap that gave the game away.

We worked with SnapChat to use their system in a totally new way. Tinnyvision seemed live, but wasn’t. We shot in advance and sent our story to each new viewer on the day they followed. Each snap was automatically cued to send at a time that matched the time of day in the video.

Most Snapchat campaigns require daily content created on the fly. We got 6 weeks of controlled activity from one setup. It gave us time to ensure our story was on-message and authentic.

Tinnyvision got the attention of over 10,000 hard to reach young people. 98% spent a whole day with it. Sticking around until the very last snap. Because they had time to relate to the characters, the final message really resonated. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

Qualitive analysis of posts and social commentary gave us a list of sites Kiwi stoners hang out on. Then, we worked with the editors of those sites to create posts that endorsed following Tinnyvsion. They did this in their own words—whatever made sense for that website.

Sites included youth radio station social pages, internet news sites and social pages for youth.

Example post:

“If you’ve got Snapchat add the account ‘tinnyvision’ and check out what these boys are getting up to. They’re crack up and certainly making a name for themselves. Here’s a little taste below…”

Tinnyvision got the attention of 10,000 hard-to-reach young people. 98% spent the whole day with it—sticking around until the very last snap. Because they had time to relate to the characters, the final message really resonated. Feedback on social media has been overwhelmingly positive. Furthermore, our unique approach hit the headlines in mainstream media, and on the sites stoners hang out on.

Drug driving is an unpopular message. Young stoners don’t want to hear marijuana slows reactions and makes driving dangerous. And when they hear it from the government, they tune out immediately. The New Zealand Transport Agency needed to get them interested and invested, so they would actually consider the message. That meant flying under their radar. We captured their attention with an entertaining story, presented via a medium that screamed authenticity. Nobody expected this Snapchat account to carry a brand message, because it had never been used like that before. Unsuspecting viewers came on a journey with the characters in the snaps. They identified with them and their casual drug use, and this made the final reveal and message really resonate. This campaign was pure branded content, from the Snaps through to the seeding strategy—authentic posts on sites stoners hang out on. There were no other forms of advertising.