Marketers love storytelling!
This week I’ll be attending The Drum’s Social Buzz Awards, a particular highlight of the awards calendar each year. Celebrating some of the best in social media, there will a plenty of buzzwords. No doubt this one will feature in the synopsis of many of the winning campaigns, storytelling.
Marketers are using this hook to drive a personal and emotional connection with their target audience. It’s said that a picture tells a thousand words. How many pictures does a video tell I wonder?
Last night I participated in a frequent activity. I actually clicked on one of those Promoted Tweets. Why, I hear you ask? This was the tweet,
Be prepared to have your mind blown in the world’s first interactive Twitter video! #myfishermansfriend https://t.co/YR11AwYwMi
— Hans Niderf (@HansNiderf) November 19, 2015
I was blown away!
Create an engaging story
I suggest you go and have a look at http://movie.fishermansfriend.social/en-us/
How does a brand that has been specialising in extra strong lozenges since 1865 get any cut through in today’s brand noise?
Quite simply put, relevancy, personalisation and creating a unique digital experience for the consumer. Congratulations to all those involved, including Fisherman’s Friend.
Doing something that hasn’t been done before, and so well in my mind, means they’ve significantly raised the bar somewhat. My memory was jogged today about the Tippexperience a long time ago and the NSFW A Hunter Shoots a Bear campaign on YouTube.
What strikes me with this storytelling campaign is the creativity, the speed in which a personalised video is created and how seamlessly the experience is with the follow up tweets and inclusion of the characters in this story.
This campaign does require the user to give permission to Fisherman’s Friend to access your Twitter timeline in order carry out the personalisation. They will then gather some information that’s relevant to you, place this into a branded video and upload this video into YouTube, then share back the link via Twitter and mention you in a tweet.
Personalisation spoiler alert
Below are some highlights of the personalisation, without giving away the full story that’s told.
You can enjoy my personalised video here https://youtu.be/aEw6EADzPoU and below.
Using your profile photo
Fisherman’s Friend uses your profile photo and cleverly blends it into a noticeboard of photos in which the lead character Hans gazes into. If your photo isn’t a company logo, or a headshot like mine you can sense it would have a really big impact if it were a photo of you on a mountain, or on holiday, with your cat, etc.
There is another sweet touch where your profile photo is overlaid onto a mug, very reminiscent of those personalised gifts you can buy online.
Your Twitter timeline
What I found particularly impressive was when Hans is looking at his phone and scrolling through my timeline. It did in fact cover my latest tweets. Having this show on a phone, at an angle, and rendered in a way that looked native was outstanding.
Your Tweets
When Hans looked at one of my tweets, it was a recent one, which I did on Back to the Future Day. Rather ironic given that my last blog post was written on this day too, The Future is Whatever You Make It.
Your Twitter handle
Lastly the use of your Twitter handle blended onto the lifejackets was a very good final touch. It highlights the Twitter accounts of the two characters, Hans Niderf and Sven Fleetwood, which really puts you in the story alongside them.
Why will this be successful?
A big question many will have, is whether it increases sales of lozenges, what was the brand impact and was there a tangible return on investment?
This campaign will get picked up for a number of reasons.
- It’s clever, very clever. That alone will have it shared amongst those in the digital industry as an example that shows how creativity and technology can work together to make a story compelling and personal. Expect to hear more of this campaign in trade press from those involved.
- The delivery of this video is highly shareable. Fisherman’s Friend are hosting the videos in YouTube, meaning it’s easy to share and embed this story into other social networks and blogs. The fact that they tweet back the link means that it’s easy for Twitter users to retweet or quote the message that includes them. I’m sure the social community will be analysing the reach and usage of the campaign hashtag.
- People love to feel part of something and this is accentuated when it’s personalised. I’m sure there’s a demographic of users who have no brand affinity to Fisherman’s Friends or even know who this brand is. It could well open up a new audience and drive awareness and interest through curiosity. Those like me, a middle age man who’s occasionally bought these lozenges growing up or given them from my father, it will stimulate the urge to go and buy some for old time’s sake.
I did take part in this campaign and even went and bought some Fisherman’s Friend this morning in the newsagents.
Now my mouth has been blown away!