The Campaign

In an HP first, we created the HP YouTubers campaign, enlisting the help of some of Australia’s brightest YouTube stars to create content and feature the very technology we needed to get Millennials to consider. We cherry picked 3 amazing Aussie YouTube creators: Singer Troye Sivan; Sketchshe, the Aussie lip syncing sensations; and 15-year-old DJ/vlogger Tyde Levi and asked them to create content for us. But we did not want to just badge them. Crucially, we would give them 100% creative control - a VERY risky move for the brand but one we felt was essential if we were to generate authentic content to resonate with our audience of teen girls. At a special activation at YouTube FanFest we unveiled the content and showcased the world-premiere of Troye's music video to hundreds of screaming, crying fans. It was at this point that we knew our strategy had paid off!

Creative Execution

At the core of the campaign was a unique partnership with You Tube for YouTube FanFest. Our YouTubers produced unique and bespoke video and social content for us, 66 pieces in total, integrating various HP devices. Each piece of video content was promoted by the YouTuber across their own social channels, with HP reposting and amplifying many of them. Content included: HP funded the making of Troye Sivan’s ‘’Fools’’ music video, in which the HP Pavilion x360 played an integral role. The video told the story of openly gay Sivan and his fictional childhood friend and the struggles their same-sex relationship faced. Sketchshe created a music video with their version of the classic 90s track ‘’Ice, Ice Baby’’ as a call-to-action to find someone who would sing with them on stage at FanFest. And Tyde Levi would become our roving reporter on the red carpet, DJ’ing in front of 5000.

Our 66 pieces of video and social content were devoured by our audience on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. • The metric this campaign was created to shift, brand consideration, increased by 12.5%, putting us HIGHER than Apple across the campaign period – a significant win for HP. • The measure of the ‘’only brand to be considered’’ increased by a whopping 75% and ‘’a brand for me’’ increased by 9% • Market share reached an all-time high of 26% • Our content reached a total of 14.86 million people, an amazing result for a comparatively small HP media spend • And it amassed a massive 1.97 million engagements (likes, comments and shares etc.), reflecting the huge resonance that the content had with the target audience. Our strategy had been a challenging one for the brand to agree to, but one which they admitted had absolutely paid off.

A music video about gay teen sex, a 15-year old DJ giving relationship advice in his bedroom, and 3 girls lip syncing to 'Vanilla Ice' in a clapped-out Holden car! NOT the kind of content you'd expect an extremely conservative 80-year-old US company to dish up. But that's exactly what we convinced HP (local, regional and global) to do for their 2015 Q3/Q4 campaign. Across 66 pieces of bespoke content we amassed nearly 2 million engagements, reached nearly 15 million people, and our consideration, market share, and engagement skyrocketed as a result, higher than Apple during the campaign period!

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our strategy was founded on 1 key insight: For millennials – authenticity is key. This generation has a very acute bullshit detector – they not only want people to be real, but honest. And they are taking control and using the power of their views, shares and likes to create a new breed of celebrity - found on YouTube. Our strategy was therefore to get our audience to play with our products on their OWN turf, on THEIR terms and in their OWN way. We convinced HP to shift their media thinking to prioritise earned over paid media – a HUGE step-change for the brand. This resulted in a 244k media spend for the YouTubers campaign, 20% of the average HP campaign spend. We determined the content would ONLY live on the YouTubers’ own YouTube and social channels, enabling us to leverage their huge organic audiences.