The Campaign

What do you get when you combine technical gurus, with a love for dance music, an XBOX Kinect, and a truckload of V Energy drink? You get a worldwide phenomenon that captured the imagination of people around the globe, drove huge earned media reach, and most importantly helped drive V sales. This was ‘The V Motion Project’. In April 2012, V assembled a team of technology developers, audio engineers, visual artists, dancers, musicians and producers, and gave them a challenge – to create a piece of music using only the body’s movement. Over 16 weeks the project was documented and released as a series of online webisodes to give the public a real time behind the scenes look at the team’s journey. The V Motion Project showcased the new technology with an unexpected live event in downtown Auckland. This was covered live on TV and radio, witnessed & recorded by hundreds of spectators and uploaded to Blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Content generated throughout the campaign has had more than 1.8 million views across YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter & Facebook, plus. The music track (“Can’t Help Myself”) reached No.1 on the iTunes Electronic Music charts and No.1 on the New Zealand Singles charts. And the campaign generated a PR return on investment of 400%.

The Brief

V Energy has always stood for giving people the energy to do extraordinary things. But the strategy for delivering on this had to evolve with our young target market. For our young audience, social networking, gaming and technology are as normalised as television – they’re a huge part of their life – but it’s brands that also exist in both their online & offline worlds that they connect with most. Putting this strategic thinking together resulted in a full 360 degree communications experience, where we used strong PR relationships to drive deep consumer engagement.

Results

As per our objectives, The V Motion Project delivered significant lifts in consumer engagement and sales. • Significant earned media with PR return on investment of 400% • Website visits increased by 1000% • All content was viewed more than 1.8 million times • Facebook Likes grew 12% • The music track (Can’t Help Myself) reached #1 in the New Zealand Singles Charts, and #1 on the iTunes Electronic Music charts. • While V Energy sales increase in measured channels by 13%. The project has also received huge international attention from some of the world’s most creative companies including TED, the Discovery Channel, Microsoft, Warner Bros Music, Disney, PepsiCo and Google. The Huffington Post described the project as “the future of dance music”, while the Daily What referred to it as “a prototype for Skrillex’s inevitable 2017 Super Bowl half-time show.”

Execution

During the 16 weeks production timeline, we released weekly content in association with our PR partners, updating our young target of our progress to create a music track using the body’s movement. Community interest built steadily. On June 16th, The V Motion Project showcased its new technology with an unexpected live performance in downtown Auckland. The motion artist’s movements were projected as mind-blowing animations onto a 12x30m wall, as the music boomed all around. The event was covered live on national TV and radio via our PR partners, while it was witnessed & recorded by hundreds of spectators, and uploaded to YouTube and Facebook. And finally we released our 3 minute music track and music video. This content was played on-air via our radio and TV PR partners. The music track was also loaded to iTunes and within days had generated huge sales taking the track to no.1!

The Situation

In 2012, V Energy had just come off the most successful three-year period in its 15-year history. The brand had over 50% market share and was even outselling Coca-Cola in petrol stations. But our 18-24yr youth market were moving on, evolving and getting used to how we were communicating. They were being attracted by the promise of newer and more edgy brands. We had to stay ahead of them if we were to maintain our position and find new ways to engage with them for a longer period of time.

The Strategy

V assembled technology developers, audio engineers, visual artists, and a music producer, and gave them a challenge – to create a piece of music using only the body’s movement. The team hacked Microsoft’s Kinect motion tracking software with audio software Abelton, to create an instrument that transforms movement into sounds. The result was The V Motion Project. The entire project was filmed from start to finish. This content was then fed out to core PR partners including NZ’s leading youth TV and radio stations. Each partner featured our content live on-air, on their website and social channels, interviewed core team members, reported live from the team’s headquarters and supplied hundreds of adlibs across the whole campaign. In addition to this, our PR partners created their own content using the technology, furthering the authenticity of the project.