The campaign aims to reach the whole of New Zealand with an ad featuring someone they know.
Skinny’s Friend-vertising campaign is attempting to reach the whole of New Zealand with an ad featuring someone they know.
Skinny may not have the biggest advertising budgets, a legacy of innovation, or the heft of their beloved competitors in the telco market.
But what they do have is an army of customers who love them. So much so, that Skinny have won Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice Award in the mobile category five years in a row.
These are lovely, happy customers who would gladly recommend Skinny to their friends and/or family.
Which is where Friend-vertising comes in.
Considering that word of mouth is 83% more effective than advertising, and that it seems like everyone in New Zealand knows someone who knows someone, Skinny’s new Friend-vertising campaign aims to reach everyone in New Zealand with an ad for Skinny fronted by a person they know.
A highly targeted direct campaign that operates at a national broadcast level.
To do this, the campaign stars literally heaps of happy Skinny customers, each fronting their own highly produced audio-visual commercial, imploring their friends and family to join them on Skinny.
In each, a happy customer stands alone in a two-person, friendship scenario – like riding a see saw, water skiing, or playing chess - and talks about how Skinny’s mobile network covers 98% of places Kiwis work and live. How Skinny are a Kiwi brand, run by Kiwis for Kiwis. That they have hundreds of thousands of the nation’s happiest mobile customers. And how they’ll do anything to save their customers money.
Hindi, Cantonese, Samoan, and Sign Language versions of the ad are running in prime-time TV slots without subtitles.
Out of home placements feature recognisable faces from the community and are geo-located to reach those who are most likely to recognise them.
In social media, those who missed out on starring in the TV and out of home executions can generate their own online ads, targeted to their friends and family.
“In a new world of social isolation and working from home, connection to our friends and family are more important than ever," Skinny brand lead Ally Young says.
"This new campaign feeds directly into that insight – and is a playful take on the importance of social connection.”
The campaign launched with the broadcast of 46 unique TV ads, each one featuring completely different talent.
Created by ColensoBBDO, there were 15 unique TV executions on the first night alone.
“This was the most complex campaign to ever blow through our building," ColensoBBDO TV producer Natasha Gill says.
"Our tiny brains would melt every time we did the math on fitting so many people into a normal production timeline. But it was definitely worth it. Probably?”
Rachel Leyland of PhD Media: “This has been the most ridiculously hectic, but amazing campaign to work on. It’s personalization on mass, effectively turning out talent into our channels, with our job being to get maximum reach and LOLs with the people they know.”
The campaign went live on March 22.
Credits
Skinny:
Ally Young - Chapter Lead – Brand
Hunter Haines - Brand Partner – Social
Frith Wilson-Hughes – Chapter Lead - Social
Janine Casis - Paid Social Partner
Otto Gebhar - Automation Analyst
Steve Imm, - Skinny Product Owner
Krissy Martin - Customer Marketer – Skinny
Shannon Evans – Skinny Mobile Product Owner
Steve Hay – E2E Journey Specialist
Gareth Killip – Chapter Lead – Skinny DevOps
Rhys Huber – Customer Marketer – Trade
Emma Biggs – Legal Business Partner
Ryan Drew – Chapter Lead – Performance Marketing
Agency: Colenso BBDO
Media Agency: PHD Media
Trade and Digital Agency: Platform 29
Production Company: Good Oil
Director: Dave Wood
Executive Producer: Lee Thompson
Executive Producer: Andrew McLean
DOP: Crighton Bone
Editor: Simon Njoo
Colourist: Pete Richie
Online Editor: Richard Betts at Blockhead
Sound Design: Liquid Studios
Sound Design: Craig Matuschka
Music Producer: Tamara O’Neill
Music Producer: Shirleyanne McDonald-Shaw
Stills Production: Match
Photographer: Troy Goodall
Retoucher: Jason King at SixtyFour
