Planner's Favourite: Footlocker, Evian & Avatar
Welcome to the latest edition of our 'Planner's Favourite' series where we ask a respected planner from the media industry to judge a selection of campaigns that ran across our platforms. Please see the campaigns below and watch this space for the judge's verdict -Ed.
Footlocker: Sneakers for Life
Footlocker teamed up with YouTube to give fans a chance of winning Sneakers for Life. To win, sneaker fanatics had to upload a homemade video clip to Foot Locker’s YouTube channel – showing exactly how obsessed with sneakers they really are. The top video clips showing ‘sneaker enthusiasm beyond reason’ were narrowed down by Foot Locker, who were looking for the funniest and craziest examples of sneaker passion.
The campaign hub consisted of a competition brand channel on YouTube. Flash ads and promoted videos across YouTube and Google’s Content Network, targeting UK, DE, IT, SP and FR, drove traffic to the competition.
The channel amassed 1,106,665 channel views, 693,202 video views, 1,015 channel subscribers, 458 video ratings and 207 competition entries. Over the period of 3 months since the Footlocker campaign went live, YouTube.com/FootLocker received a massive 25% more views than the highest performing State side brand channel.
Evian Roller Babies: Viral
Danone Waters decided the heart of Evian’s campaign would be viral. They chose YouTube to power it, debuting the ‘roller babies’ ad on the homepage in 6 key markets worldwide. The result is history, with more than 62 million views. It is now the most viewed ad online and has even made The Guinness Book of Records. The viral nature of YouTube was a huge catalyst for this success. As Michael Aidan, Evian Global Director puts it ‘people click because they want to see it. If they then pass it on, that goes far beyond exposure.’ Evian have now created an Evian Babies channel on YouTube which features making of videos and 'interviews' with the babies since their success. The channel has had 1,632,538 channel views and 53M upload video views.
Avatar: Movie Launch
Fox collaborated with YouTube on one of the biggest entertainment launches of all time. The aim was to build awareness for the new franchise Avatar. 15 years in the making, it was imperative for Fox to capture interest of as large an audience as possible and deliver an experience that would do this 3-D epic justice.
Fox chose to launch the teaser trailer on the homepage of YouTube on August 22nd - 4 months before the film release. The campaign ran across 15 countries and utilised an expandable masthead incorporating an HD trailer to ensure the highest quality experience possible.
Fox then ran a high impact homepage takeover campaign (15 countries, 24hrs, 3 days) to coincide with the Avatar premiere on 11th December 2009.
To deliver an experience to their audience Fox Pictures used YouTube partners on the red carpet to interview the stars of the film. This was the first time YouTube had red carpet presence and it worked incredibly well. The red carpet footage was uploaded to a brand channel; Local Google search and the homepage takeovers also linked through to the brand channel to allow users to view the exclusive content.
Metrix Labs conducted research to measure success. The Avatar campaign drove huge lifts in top of mind awareness (+17%) and spontaneous awareness (+25%). It also had a direct impact on behaviour, driving a 15% increase in intent to watch the movie. Users were 9% more likely to discuss and share information about the film after seeing the ad.