Skinny doesn’t the biggest advertising budgets. Doesn’t have a legacy of innovation. Doesn’t have massive weight like its competitors. But it does have a lot of very ardent fans.
In fact, it has won Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice Award in the mobile category 5 years in a row.
Its happy customers would gladly recommend Skinny to their friends and/or family.
That got Colenso thinking. Given that word of mouth is 83% more effective than advertising [Neilson] and it seems as though everyone in New Zealand knows someone who knows someone, the agency invented friend-vertising and a campaign that 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.
The campaign stars dozens 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 seesaw, water skiing, or playing chess – and talks about how Skinny’s mobile network covers 98% of places Kiwis work and live. How Skinny is 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. The OOH ads 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.
Here’s the compilation:
The campaign launched on March 22 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.
Natasha Gill, TV producer at ColensoBBDO, commented, “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?”
Rachel Leyland, business director at PhD Media, added, “This has been the most ridiculously hectic, but amazing campaign to work on. It’s personalization on mass, effectively turning out talent into our channels, with our job being to get maximum reach and LOLs with the people they know.”
Ally Young, brand lead for Skinny, stated, “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.”
Credits
Agency: Colenso BBDO
Media Agency: PHD Media
Trade and Digital Agency: Platform 29
Production Company: Good Oil
Director: Dave Wood
Executive Producers: Lee Thompson & Andrew McLean
DOP: Crighton Bone
Editor: Simon Njoo
Colourist: Pete Richie
Online Editor: Richard Betts @ Blockhead
Sound Design: Craig Matuschka @ Liquid Studios
Music Producers: Tamara O’Neill & Shirleyanne McDonald-Shaw
Stills Production: Match
Photographer: Troy Goodall
Retoucher: Jason King @ SixtyFour
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 – Skinny: 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
