The Campaign

In Singapore, there are strict restrictions on content aired or published on mass-media. There is one free-to-air terrestrial TV company, one cable TV company and a limited choice of newspapers as well. Production costs are one of the most expensive in the region. As such, branded entertainment via traditional mass media is often considered costly, both in terms of investment and also time and resources, to negotiate through the restrictions. The opportunity in Singapore is having a high level of technology adoption. Singaporeans have a life online beyond traditional media and the lines of reality are blurring between online and real world, especially for the younger audience.

Results

Challenge: To urgently defend business share via sponsorship packages. However, we knew we had a communication challenge that went beyond media… Young women knew Olay, but perceived the brand to be for their mums and lacked relevance with their lifestyles. Objectives: For young women to not be indifferent to Olay; to drive consumer involvement, interaction and increase business share. Strategy: Encourage women to follow, participate and tell the re-discovery of Olay and how it transformed their skin with Project Olay360 - a content series anchored by webisodes with an unscripted, reality format, co-created and co-starring 4 bloggers and real women from all walks of life, as well as Olay. They challenged themselves to take part in a journey to achieve 360 skin transformation over six weeks. Execution: • Produce: Filmed actual developments of challenges in partnership with Nuffnang. Hosted video content on Youtube, Nuffnang website as Olay Project360 webisodes over six weeks - as the cast learnt, shared, experienced and competed to transform their skin. • Social (Enable sharing and discovery): Facilitated for bloggers and young women to network, learn and have more content for their blogging and sharing. o Contest mechanics intrigue and incentivize bloggers, their networks, and Olay fans to share, solicit support, follow and vote o Developmental highlights crafted as conversation starters on Facebook and Twitter. o Optimized content: Created video widgets to enable bloggers to share content easily. • Promote, Blend and Amplify across online and offline. o Blended Olay branded TV copy with edits from the Finale Party, where the cast celebrated their skin transformation and the winning team was revealed, to intrigue viewers to view the developments online. o Digital banners on Yahoo, Shopping Lifestyle and Nuffnang as contest call-outs to engage audience to vote and win. o Transformation story featured in newly launched and controversial Cosmopolitan.

Young women are drawn into reality conversations:  They found skincare brands’ claims confusing. They bought into claims and did not experience results. They know their lifestyles affect results, but were unclear of what, when and how.  They felt media and brands stereotype youngsters (their reality and aspirations); they prefer to discover the authentic.  Circle of friends/peers include the interactions online and offline. Lines of reality are blurring between online and offline worlds. They spend disproportionate time on online video-viewing, blogging and on social networks.  [Skincare Purchase] Highly influenced by peers’ (72%); bloggers’ (42%) recommendations.

360 turnaround for Olay, far exceeded expectations. From its lowest business share point at 13%, and consumer indifference; 1. Project Olay360 value share increased by 11% versus pre-campaign (Source of all business results: Nielsen share report, 2011). 2. Immediate launch impact and business uptrend, with a 15% increase in value share. 3. From zero mentions in the blogosphere, the participation from bloggers viralled to 262 mentions at launch. A positive indication for Olay but also a reflection of the interest and value the blogging community attached to the content source (Source: Agency research, Social media listening buzz volume, June-August 2011 versus September 2011). 4. 596,556 consumer-led stories around the the Olay transformation project - 87% of the universe of young ladies (Source: Facebook insights, Nuffnang, Google, Youtube). 5. There were more than 60,743 unique views of the webisodes, 90,500 blog views, 2180 votes, and 2378 tweets. 6. 19,522,609 impressions (earned, owned and paid media) with 2000 times less budget than if the same content were approached via paid media only. Afterwards Olay Project360, market share increased to 16.3% despite low base plan activities. It remains at the highest share point past 12 months. (Source: Nielsen market share report, Dec 2011)