Super M: The M is for Me campaign

When Super M briefed us, they were looking for the chance to engage with consumers in a year-long campaign that would do more than just promote the brand, it would show consumers that they knew their audience.

We’d used the characters of Baz & Stretch in previous animated Super M promotions online but never to their fullest potential. There was something to them that went beyond playing silent roles as wide-eyed fans in our earlier animations. We knew they were the key to driving interaction with consumers.

Most brands create these sorts of characters as mascots for the brand itself, but Baz & Stretch were designed to reflect the interests of the audience. They don’t just belong to Super M: they’re fans of the brand with their own exciting lives and a wide variety of interests. We’d already planned to use them in follow-up campaigns and this new campaign we were drafting needed to really touch base with consumers and get into their headspace. We called it M is for Me and that meant it had to be all about the consumer experience.

The thing about people is that, when they buy a brand, they invest more than just their money into the experience. It becomes a part of their lifestyle. Especially in the current marketplace, and dealing with today’s youth, you’re looking at people who buy everything from their sneakers to their smartphones in order to say something about themselves. In essence, the “M” in Super M already belonged to the consumer. We just needed to show them how in tune the brand was with their interests.

Once we had that core idea in place, we divided the campaign into some pretty clear-cut phases: M is for Music, M is for Money and… well, you’ll have to wait and see about the rest. An energetic, youthful audience like the one that purchases Super M needed a brand to approach them with something that resonated with them – the chance to win something big and exciting, and the chance to keep winning throughout the campaign. We offered consumers both those opportunities with a simple code located on the wrapper of every Super M they purchased. All they had to do was SMS that code to us and they immediately gained entry to win both weekly airtime bundles and a crazy grand prize of a trip for themselves and their friends to visit the world famous Ibiza Rocks Hotel for a four-night, all-expenses-paid trip. What’s more, we’re sending them to this insane party on Ibiza Rocks’ eighth birthday, which promises to be a one-of-a-kind experience.

It took only a few days for word to get out about the competition once stock hit the stands, with entries climbing from almost 1000 on the first day to peaks of over 3000 votes per day in just two weeks. By the time January came around we were receiving daily entries nearing 10,000 entries a day. By the end of the campaign we had received 284,966 entries. Ultimately, one lucky winner was selected from all those entrants and he’s planning his trip right now.

But that’s just the first phase of the campaign.

One of the most important factors in creating a campaign like this is making it simple for consumers to enter again and again. Especially when we now shift into the “M is for Money” phase of the campaign. Things shouldn’t get confusing in this transitional period, and so making use of the same USSD code and SMS entry system for the next phase of the campaign will make that transition as smooth as possible.

M is for Money has already kicked off and we look forward to seeing even better results in this leg of the campaign. And hey, we’re already warming up for next year’s version of the same thing!

[Originally Published at BizCommunity]

Baz & Stretch try to make some cash

It’s our brand new Super M animation to promote the M is for Money campaign! Baz & Stretch are back in another hilarious animation as they try to make a couple extra bucks. As always, our team pushed their boundaries to create a great, distinct and exciting piece of work.

Super M is giving you the chance to win a grand prize of R5000 every week!!! Buy a Super M and enter now. Don’t miss out. Go get yourself a Super M right now!

T&C apply.

Credits

Voices
Baz: Bevan Cullinan
Stretch: Mpho Modikoane

Agency: 7 Different Kinds of Smoke
Strategic Director: Ryan Gandalf van Jaarsveld
Creative Director: Neil Clarence
Art Director: Jonathan Corns
Writers: Andy Bam
Illustration: Kyle Baillie and André Ackermann
Animation: André Ackermann
Voice Audio: Rocketsound – Jeremy C. Elwell
Final Audio: Jonathan Corns and André Ackermann

Super M Live with The Parlotones

The idea behind the campaign was simple: Super M wanted to give away tickets to their Super M Live concert with The Parlotones, as well as give away R5000 a week.

We came back with the idea for a viral video that would go live on a mobisite and Youtube. Super M liked the concept enough to ask us to produce their TV ad as well, which took 7DKS into new territory. Obviously, we accepted, coming up with the characters Baz and Stretch who take a sip of a Super M and launch themselves off their couch and into a new world.

We ended up launching the video on Youtube before it hit TV screens. Really, we were experimenting with the nature of what makes something a TV ad instead of a viral video. If the video debuted online first, it would engage a whole different audience. In essence, when it moved on to TV, it would be graduating to another medium and a whole new audience.

If you take a closer look at InStream – Youtube’s video advertising service – you’ll find quite a few TV and TV-style advertisements clogging up the space before whatever video it is you’re really planning to watch. The effect they have on consumers is questionable because all they’re seeing is a regular old TV ad that’s on a service that was designed to advertise Youtube’s own channels and content.

As simple as it may seem, flipping the order of the video’s release around actually sends a new message to the audience.

Mike Scott from Cape Town handled animation on the project alongside a team of illustrators, and we created ‘The Milkshake Song’. We knew from the start that our video was aimed at the internet’s ADD generation so it had to be quick, punchy and entertaining.

Once it was out there, we had our first experience with flamers on Youtube.

We’d incorporated a lot of popular memes from the time – stuff like 9gag’s “Y U NO”, “Like A Sir”, as well as some local gags like an appearance by Riaan Cruywagen (a meme in his own right) – and that received an even more interesting reaction from viewers. Some users felt like memes didn’t belong in a commercialized world. This is interesting and indicative of an increasing sense of ownership people feel towards the brands they interact with. What we were seeing was that users needed the space to discuss the campaign in their own way. We let the discussion slide because we know that now more than ever, this kind of conversation between users is something brands need to allow for.

In the end we received over 100,000 entries for the competition, with consumers still drawn to the content and the R5000 weekly prize. The Super M TVC had about 190,000 views and the second video roped in about 16,000 views.

If you create something that starts a conversation, you’ve got a winner. Whether it’s positive or negative, brands need to learn to let it take place. And as much as there are some who dislike something, there are an equal number who like it. It’s even more interesting when you see the users themselves argue about the value of the content, and using Youtube as a means of engaging them provides them with that space.

This is a lesson we carried forward into our Tropika campaign. More on that soon.

[Originally Published at BizCommunity]