WORLD'S FASTEST COUCH STUNT

TitleWORLD'S FASTEST COUCH STUNT
BrandPARMALAT
Product / ServiceICE BREAK FLAVOURED MILK
CategoryA03. Best Use of Live Events and/or Celebrity Endorsement
EntrantTHE MONKEYS Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company:THE MONKEYS Sydney, AUSTRALIA
PR/Advertising Agency:THE MONKEYS Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Justin Drape The Monkeys Executive Creative Director
Scott Nowell The Monkeys Executive Creative Director
Scott Nowell The Monkeys Creative Director
Benn Sutton The Monkeys Copywriter
Jed De Pyper The Monkeys Art Director
Thea Carone The Monkeys Head Of Braodcast Production
Dan Beaumont The Monkeys Group Account Director
Gini Sinclair The Monkeys Account Director
Kate Behne The Monkeys Account Manager
Stew Arnott The Monkeys Editor
Paul Mckinnon Evolution Motor Sport Couch Design/Build

The Campaign

After a decade of archaic and predictable communications activity, Ice Break ice coffee was at risk of losing relevance with its target audience. To the average Australian male Ice Break is more than an Iced coffee, it’s a motor to get them through the day. So we turned a product benefit into an online show. ‘Add A Motor To It’ (AAMTI) featured ordinary Australians who have added motors to extraordinary things. The show - comprising 7 episodes - was broadcast on a customised YouTube channel, but with little money to drive people to the channel we had to find an interesting way to launch the show. So we decided to add a motor to a couch, and create the fastest couch in the world. The objectives for the ‘couch stunt’ were: 1. Generate PR coverage based on the ‘fastest couch’ stunt 2. Drive YouTube views of the ‘fastest couch’ 3. Launch AAMTI. We held an event, on Monday 26th September at Camden Airport, NSW, where we set about attempting to break the world record and demonstrate the sheer awesomeness of a motorised couch. The event resulted in three videos that were sent out to media as well as seeded on social media sites and the Ice Break Facebook page an hour after the event. Not only was the attempt successful – we clocked over 100 miles an hour achieving the Guinness World Record for the Fastest Motorised Couch - it was both a hit with the media, and a YouTube sensation.

The Brief

Ice Break drinkers are blokes 18 to 29 years. They’re knockabout, simple and genuine blokes. Ice Break’s attitude reflects the risk-taking attitude these blokes see in themselves (even if nobody else does). Desktop research via Roy Morgan was used to confirm audience interest in ‘motors’; plus observations of our sizeable Facebook community.

Results

PR and virality accounted for $1.3m in earned media value Over 14 minutes of national TV coverage Most Australian capital city daily papers. Myriad international publications and major online publishers Motoring and young male sites featured heavily. Drive YouTube views for the ‘fastest couch’ No.1 YouTube ‘most watched video of the week’ in the Entertainment category No.2 overall. 17 YouTube honours. Over 650k views. Drive interest in AAMTI. AAMTI launched to great success. Viewers spent an average 14 minutes on the AAMTI YouTube channel in the first 3 weeks. Campaign average (8 weeks) was 8.5 mins $2.9m in earned media value for the AAMTI campaign 32 YouTube honours Facebook community grew 32.5% Greatest week of sales in the brand’s history.

Execution

We commissioned a local motorsport designer to create a leather two-seater complete with coffee table and subtle Ice Break branding. The stunt took place two days before the YouTube launch of AAMTI, at Camden Airport 60kms outside of Sydney. As this was too far for busy journalists, instead of inviting them to the venue we filmed and edited the stunt on site so we could prepare a simple package of three videos, along with a press release celebrating the Ice Break couch’s success. Once the stunt was successfully completed (to Guinness World Record Standards) we then dispatched the media kit to our list of targeted media outlets. Despite concerns of safety and whether or not the Ice Break couch would break the world record, the stunt went off without a hitch and our original plan did not need to be adapted in any way.

The Situation

Ice Break’s AAAMTI was broadcast on a customized YouTube channel. With a modest budget we couldn’t use mainstream media to push people towards the site so we decided to use a PR stunt to pull people to us. Our audience of 18-29 year old males is very active online, so we needed to engage them with the brand via social media platforms. The world’s fastest couch stunt appealed for these reasons.

The Strategy

In some ways the strategy was simple: go as fast as we could on a motorised couch. However, a lot riding on getting the PR stunt right. The stunt was organized for two days before the YouTube launch of AAMTI. This was designed to give us the time to generate the views and virality needed to ensure YouTube ranking success (a 48-hour window, based on YT’s algorithms). It also meant that any media coverage we received would coincide with the first episode of the show going live on YouTube.