| Title | Did Ricky Gervais Just Do That To Optus? |
| Agency | Emotive |
| Campaign | Ricky Gervais |
| Advertiser | Optus Pty. Ltd. |
| Brand | Optus |
| Date of First Broadcast/Publication | 2015 / 9 |
| Story | Objectives: Earlier in 2015, video streaming service, Netflix was launching in Australia. Optus signed an exclusive partnership with them, offering customers six months of free Netflix subscription. There was a major above the line campaign announcing the offer. The objective was to complement this through some entertaining but on-brand content. There was a clear understanding of the need to use video in the social world vs the default telco marketing platform TV – but this in itself was a step out of the ordinary. The challenge was twofold, landing the message of Optus’ launch of Netflix and delivering this last to market against two other recently launched streaming VOD services. The market place was crowded and confused. |
| Problem | Our key insights were led by a deep understanding of the target audience. Firstly, we knew that the target audience engaged and interacted the most in social media and that the organic nature of the content would be lost if we used TV. In an unusual move for a telco, we set about developing a series of ‘hero’ content pieces that would be surrounded by a media plan bypassing TV with a focus on social platforms and supported by other traditional mediums. Secondly, we knew that producing a psychological response via the content would be key to success in social. We identified hilarity as the ultimate emotional trigger that would help the Optus message cut through. The challenge was finding the right talent. Supported by Emotive’s data tool, Tubular Labs, we identified Ricky Gervais – who’s online popularity in Australia nearly matches that of the UK. The creative idea was simple yet daring. Netflix is synonymous with entertainment. We wanted to use Ricky (a Netflix star) to deliver content that was as entertaining as Netflix itself – whilst being on brand for Optus. Our creative approach was to let one of the world’s great comedians interpret the message in his own distinct way. By setting minimum script parameters we essentially gave creative control to the talent – a tactic that would be unthinkable in most advertising situations. The shoot resulted in a total of five pieces of content - three short form teaser content pieces, a scripted comic product read and a piece of pure entertainment - the ‘anti-ad’. The anti-advert features Ricky in globally renowned ‘deadpan’ mode as he delivers brazenly lazy brand messaging, conveying no pricing or product information, with full irony designed to entertain the audience and drive social actions and conversation. The piece works in three acts and has the perfect theatrical narrative (Aristotle’s Arc) where Ricky manages to deliver the Exposition, the Climax and the Denouncement in sixty seconds, while still conveying the Optus/Netflix message. The key here was the uniqueness of the content, letting Ricky be Ricky and having respect for the audience’s intelligence. We knew that if we created content that took a risk, it would be well received by social media users who would engage with and share the content. In order to reach the millennial target audience, the campaign needed to be digital, social and mobile led. The risk we faced was being able to deliver the mass reach of a TV campaign through digital channels. The Netflix proposition was perfect for an online video led campaign, but debuting a ‘social media first’ campaign was as brave a move for Optus as the content itself - a completely new approach to an Optus product announcement. The media schedule and channel selection was functionally designed to allow as big of an organic effect on the content’s popularity as possible. The content was to be rolled out over a five-week period. Instead of simply publishing one video per week, we used re-marketing to get the later two videos in front of viewers of the earlier two videos, while a fifth video was saved for the hottest leads pushing them further down the funnel. The campaign led with the anti-advert. The aim was to deliver something Australian consumers had never seen before - especially from an industry as conservative as Telecommunications. A social strategy included the use of short-form versions as pre-roll on YouTube to draw the audience through to the main content. The utilisation of radio and outdoor to carry the functional message meant paid and owned media were able to work hand in hand, while a PR campaign helped gain consumer press coverage and talkability. |
| Result | The campaign delivered the scale of a TV audience through the use of social video. The results were outstanding: * The video broke the record for the fastest branded video to hit 4 Million (Australian) views in Australian Facebook history (from a population of 23 Million) * The video was the most watched ad on YouTube for Q2 in Australia * Interest level in the video was 6x higher than any TV campaign Optus had previously run, it resulted in 165% lift in searches for Optus * 95% positive sentiment on Twitter globally * A full editorial playout of the ad & discussion on The Ellen Show globally * 52 pieces of PR were generated in Australia – reaching over 4.6M people * The video featured in the top 5 global ads on Adweek and Faster CoCreate * The video has now had over 9 million views globally and counting. |
| Media Type | Television |
| Length | |
| Executive Creative Director | Charlie Leahy |