Title | FRIEND-VERTISING |
Brand | SKINNY |
Product / Service | SKINNY |
Category | E01. Use of Film |
Entrant | COLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND |
Idea Creation | COLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND |
Media Placement | PHD Auckland, NEW ZEALAND |
PR | DRUM Auckland, NEW ZEALAND |
Production | GOOD OIL FILMS Auckland, NEW ZEALAND |
Post Production | LIQUID STUDIOS Auckland, NEW ZEALAND |
Additional Company | PLATFORM 29 Auckland, NEW ZEALAND |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Piers Bebbington | Colenso BBDO | Managing Partner |
Thomas Darlow | Colenso BBDO | Creative Director |
Thomas Darlow | Colenso BBDO | Creative Director - Copywriter |
Luke Dawson | Colenso BBDO | Art Director |
Serena Fountain-Jones | Colenso BBDO | Senior Integrated Producer |
Natasha Gill | Colenso BBDO | Head of TV |
Troy Goodall | Freelancer | Photographer |
Josh Hart-Vrijkotte | Colenso BBDO | Designer |
Jason King | SixtyFour | Retoucher |
Beth O'Brien | Colenso BBDO | Creative Director |
Levi Slavin | Colenso BBDO | Chief Creative Officer |
Michael Swinburn | Colenso BBDO | Copywriter |
Sarah Williams | Spark | Tribe Lead Brand Experience |
Kat Tadaki | Colenso BBDO | Art Director |
Emma Leisegang | Colenso BBDO | Business Director |
Elsi Gibbs | Colenso BBDO | Business Manager |
Amy Pollok | Colenso BBDO | Senior Planner |
Ally Young | Skinny | Chapter Lead - Brand Marketing |
Hunter Haines | Skinny | Brand Partner - Social |
Frith Wilson-Huges | Skinny | Chapter Lead - Social |
Janine Casis | Skinny | Paid Social Partner |
Otto Gebhard | Skinny | Automation Analyst |
Steve Imm | Skinny | Skinny Product Owner |
Krissy Martin | Skinny | Customer Marketer |
Shannon Evans | Skinny | Skinny Mobile Product Owner |
Steve Hay | Skinny | E2E Journey Specialist |
Gareth Killip | Skinny | Chapter Lead - Skinny DevOps |
Rhys Huber | Skinny | Customer Marketer - Trade |
Emma Biggs | Skinny | Legal Business Partner |
Ryan Drew | Skinny | Chapter Lead - Performance Marketing |
Amelie Schoen | Colenso BBDO | Digital Producer |
Lee Thomson | Good Oil | Producer |
Andrew McLean | Good Oil | Executive Producer |
George Mackenzie | Good Oil | Managing Director |
Dave Wood | Good Oil | Director |
Crighton Bone | Freelance | DOP |
Simon Njoo | Freelance | Editor |
Pete Ritchie | Freelance | Colourist |
Richard Betts | Blockhead VFX | Online |
Craig Matuschka | Liquid Studios | Sound Engineer |
Tamara O'Neill | Liquid Studios | Executive Producer |
Shirleyanne McDonald-Shaw | Liquid Studios | Producer |
The Skinny Friend-vertising campaign featured hundreds of their happy customers fronting identically produced 30-second films. Every film was the same as the one before it, except it featured a different happy Skinny customer – with the same dialogue, same settings, same looks to camera, and the same jokes. Some of the customers spoke different languages, so we shot the campaigns in their native tongues, (including sign language) with straight translations from the English script. The films featured the customers standing alone in a two-person friendship scenario, like riding a seesaw, water skiing, or playing chess, and talking simply to the benefits of the low-cost telco. Each one ended with the customers imploring their friends and family to GET THE SKINNY”, from the safety of a low-budget dodgem car.
The best thing about New Zealand is that everyone knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone. It’s a tight-knit community of five million people, which made it possible to turn our happiest Skinny customers into a media channel to produce a direct campaign that operated at a national broadcast level. So that’s exactly what we did.
A Nielsen report on the efficacy of word-of-mouth showed that recommendations from friends and family members are 92% more effective than regular ads. The Skinny Friend-vertising campaign attempted to reach everyone in New Zealand with an ad hosted by someone they knew. It became a direct, word-of-mouth campaign that operated as a nationwide broadcast. We cast hundreds of Skinny customers from all around the country and made them stars of their own campaigns. Then we gave each of them a media budget to target their ads to their friends, family, workmates, and acquaintances. They told their friends, who told their friends, and we reached 98% of New Zealand. That’s how a tiny telco with only a 10th of the ad spend of their nearest competitor, in one of the world’s most tight-knit countries, innovatively used film to turn their happiest customers into media channels, and grow into a mass-market.
Video URL | Supporting Webpage