FRIEND-VERTISING

TitleFRIEND-VERTISING
BrandSKINNY
Product / ServiceSKINNY
CategoryE01. Use of Film
EntrantCOLENSO 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

Credits

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

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

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.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

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.

Explain how the work innovatively used the film medium.

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.

Links

Video URL   |   Supporting Webpage