Hello and welcome this week’s OMD FWD. Know that while we wanted to include a veritable feast of fake news and April foolery, we’ve limited these to the ‘Cool’ section. Everything else is totally ‘legit’, promise…
This week saw a milestone day for the world of mobile, as Android internet usage during March overtook Windows PCs, albeit by less than 1%. Whilst this could have been predicted with smartphone shipments overtaking PCs six years ago it is still a sign of how important smartphones have become to many people. Elsewhere, Reddit and Vive have announced new and improved services. Reddit has revamped its self-service advertising offering whilst HTC with Vive has introduced VR ad’s, offering immersive and effective impressions. With VR now offering a clear advertising opportunity it will be interesting to see how brands react.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL (AKA FAKE NEWS)
DEEP READS
Find anything extraordinary this week? Share it via #omdfwd and we’ll make sure to include.
Already spend a lot of time on Facebook? With the launch of Workplace by Facebook, this could potentially increase. As some people spend time on Facebook to distract themselves from work, what about using the social platform for work? With competitive pricing, Facebook is on a mission to prove this is a place for business and not just sharing comedic memes. “If you can use Facebook, you can use Facebook Workplace” says Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite. The advantage of this to Facebook is that their customers will need zero to little welcome training as they will already be familiar with most of the user interface and functionalities. The same cannot be said for other collaboration tools and systems. As social media platforms and pricing models evolve, we’ll have to wait and see how users respond to these recent developments in the workplace and what the impact will be for marketers.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Share anything you see through the week with the hashtag #OMDFWD
With the continued popularity and hype around Pokemon Go, the spotlight on Augmented Reality is bright with attention on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality also increasing. The future of these technologies is still uncertain but hints of what is to come can be seen in recent industry headlines. Whilst the battle for which technology platform becomes the norm continues, the BBC has launched BBC Sport360 and NBC has an called NBC Sports, both of which will put you at the the heart of the Rio Olympics through VR capabilities. Sports fans are able to experience the closing ceremony, athletics, boxing and many more activities through 360-degree storytelling. Not all of us will have this technology lying around the house, but Facebook mentioned in April that more than 1 million people had used their VR Gear (a Facebook Samsung collaboration) for an array of experiences – from sports and movies to video games. Even more exciting is what type of product and user experiences VR will unlock for brands as the spotlight on this technology increases. Share anything you spot that is interesting with #OMDFWD
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
The ride-sharing app Uber has developed a new technology that it plans on using to track driver behaviour. Designed to improve passenger safety the technology will specifically monitor if drivers are travelling too fast or braking too harshly. Uber and drivers will receive data about their driving performance, along with safety tips on how they can improve their journey. Partnering with the Governor’s Highway Safety Association and Mothers Against Drunk Driving this announcement shows a true dedication to using cutting edge technology and data to not only improve consumer experience but in the long run, save lives. The shift in ambition demonstrates how important aspects such as efficiency, safety and the environment now are in the automotive industry and their business objectives. With these aspects being increasingly important to consumers we expect to see a rise in automotive businesses focussing their attention on purposeful product development and marketing that not only engages the consumer but benefits their livelihood. Read, learn and share away.
HEADLINES
- Apple plans to acquire the artist owned streaming service Tidal
- Snapchat announces Chat 2.0, aimed at combining video, audio, stickers and GIFs
- Facebook Messenger for business updates galore (including GIFs, obviously)
INSIGHTS
- Memes, EU citizens and Canada. What the UK digital fallout from Brexit can tell us?
- Why Facebook algorithm shift toward friend and family content is good news for social video
- How Uber plan to use mobile technology to track employee driving performance
COOL
- Hologram Karaoke is a thing and means you could take the stage with your favourite artist in the future
- Apple patents technology which could prevent people using their iPhones to film at gigs, but have released 4 new emoji packs to make up for it
- Old Spice have launched an 8 bit social game and you’re the star
DEEP READS
- Speaking of social gaming, remember Farmville? How social gaming can suffer from an over-reliance on Facebook
- More Brexit? What we can learn from opposing Brexit social media strategies
- What are the possibilities of Oculus Rift lifting it’s device restrictions
Please do share anything interesting you spot on Twitter with #OMDFWD
By Bastian Mathes, Director Insight Planning at OMD Germany, and Johannes Laakmann, Manager Brand Experience at FUSE Germany
How a financial institution used eSports to reconnect with young people
Just a couple of years back, who would have thought that someday millions of people would spend hours watching other people play video games? And yet, that’s exactly what’s happening right now on Twitch and YouTube Gaming.
The number of people tuning in to watch game-oriented content is growing steadily. In terms of viewer numbers, Let’s Play videos or eSport broadcasts are as big as music videos or major sports events. And if you consider that 80% of millennials at least occasionally engage in some sort of gaming activity, the gaming content audience is only going to grow even further. Gaming has now turned into a “viewing medium”. (If you want to know more, check out our first post on that topic.) And, the industry keeps innovating to facilitate this development. Just a few weeks ago, Twitch.tv announced Stream First, a new initiative that aims to make sure that developers are building broadcasting capabilities directly into their games.
All this opens up great new opportunities for brands to connect with millennials who are increasingly escaping from the influence of traditional media. These opportunities mostly remain untapped so far. That’s why we created “Press Play”, a comprehensive presentation that we sent out to our clients to help them get a grasp of this dynamic industry and assess the marketing value for their businesses.
However, while eSports is increasingly capturing media attention, there’s not a lot of robust data available to inform marketing strategies. Consequently, many brands are still hesitant to build it into their marketing agenda. It takes a brave client to leave the beaten media track, ready to embrace a test and learn mentality over predict and control decision-making. Especially in a category that is traditionally rather conservative, like financial services.
An unusual suspect
Frankly, Wüstenrot, Germany’s oldest and biggest building society wasn’t that high up on the list of clients that we expected to be interested in eSports. But in hindsight, we couldn’t have asked for a better business case.
The challenge: Young people aged 18-29 are an important audience for Wüstenrot. But, unfortunately, they don’t want to spend much thought on house saving plans – the sort of service that Wüstenrot is primarily associated with.
So how could we help Wüstenrot connect with these guys in a meaningful way?
Gaining independence and determining their own lives is hugely important to millennials. We wanted to show them what Wüstenrot’s brand promise “Dreams become Reality” could mean for them, because building a house might not be on their agenda for a while. In fact, it might not even be what they’re dreaming of at all.
Not everybody’s dream
That’s why we partnered with ESL, the world’s largest eSports company, as well as five ambassadors from the German gaming and eSports scene.
We produced five short-form video documentaries that provide an authentic glimpse into the unconventional lives of professional gamers, shoutcasters and broadcasters. The influencers talk about how they managed to turn their passion into a profession, the obstacles they had to overcome and what it takes to actually make a living from gaming. Original content that sends a clear and credible message: Wüstenrot will help you make your dreams come true.
These influencer videos formed the centre of the content ecosystem that we crafted for Wüstenrot. In order to connect with eSport fans on a broader scale, we sealed a sponsorship deal with Germany’s biggest national eSport event: the ESL Championship Spring Season 2016. The ESL partnership provides the perfect platform to help distribute the content across digital broadcasting platforms and social media, driving traffic to Wüstenrot’s dedicated ESL microsite. Additionally, Wüstenrot will have a prominent presence at the ESL Championship event to pick up and deepen the dialogue that they successfully started with eSports online.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN_6IlZfjns
“You should offer Ubisoft courses in marketing.”
The campaign is still up and running so we aren’t able to share final results just yet. The ESL Championship Finals will take place on May 7th and 8th in Duisburg. But, the initial reactions that we received from the eSports community since we released the first video on February 26th have already exceeded our expectations, making it evident that we chose the right approach and picked the perfect influencers for the campaign.
Here are some Facebook comments that refer to the campaign:
- “This is how advertising should be. You should offer Ubisoft courses in marketing.”
- “I think it’s awesome, that Wüstenrot supports e-sports!”
- “You guys definitely understood the target audience.”
The lessons we learned
It wasn’t just Wüstenrot’s first foray into the exciting world of eSports, it was ours as well. We worked with various OMD units – from content to programmatic – to get this off the ground. But none of that would have happened without the passion and courage that Wüstenrot put behind this campaign and the experience and support of the guys at ESL. Open collaboration and communication between our client, ESL and all agency disciplines throughout the whole process were crucial for the successful implementation of this campaign.
Another important factor that facilitated the project was the groundwork that we had done in advance. We started “Press Play” as a proactive initiative working with some junior colleagues from the agency without a concrete client assignment. Our industry is not short of “next big things” and hypes, which can make it difficult to separate a real opportunity from a flash in a pan. So we didn’t know if it would lead anywhere. Nonetheless, we invested time and resources to fully understand the topic and build a solid argument rather than just throwing in some buzzwords. We prepared a holistic assessment of what’s happening in the gaming and eSports category based on the available data, and that´s what we should do more of. If we want to help our clients stay culturally relevant, we have to implement tools and processes to stay ahead of the curve, identify trends early on and invest the effort to present that information in a comprehensible and consistent way.
Last but not least, before the kick-off, it’s important to spend some time thinking about how to measure success and gather learnings along the way. We commissioned OMD’s research department to set up a consumer survey, in order to evaluate the impact of the campaign. We also made sure to document the planning, production and execution process to ensure we’d have enough material to build a business case post-campaign.
If you want to learn more about eSports and whether it can do something for your business then please get in touch [email protected] and let’s play.