Content and social agency Edge has significantly ramped up its partnership with insurance company AAMI to deliver a far-reaching digital campaign for the launch of AAMI’s free ‘Safe Driver App’ – a smartphone app that tracks on-road performance and gives users the opportunity to win $100,000 by proving that they are Australia’s best driver.
Launched on Boxing Day with an above-the-line campaign featuring AAMI’s popular TV characters, ‘Neil and Gaz’, Edge is now responsible for rolling out the social and digital side of the #DriverDuels campaign, operating out of a dedicated Edge-created ‘campaign newsroom’ staffed by more than five people.
The real-time 'newsroom' takes care of all social channels, an influencer program, real-time audience engagement and analysis, swift content creation and amplification, as well as a custom-built microsite.
According to AAMI, the move into content creation on such a large, dedicated scale is part of a natural continuation of its “value proposition”. Brand manager Claire Whish-Wilson explains: “This is certainly the direction we have been taking things for a while, particularly since we started working with Edge two years ago.”
“Prior to hiring Edge we managed all social and content in house, but as the goal posts have changed so rapidly, it felt obvious to us that we needed to hire a company with more insight and expertise,” she continued.
Whish-Wilson also explained how AAMI budgets have been slowly shifting towards more social activity and content creation: “We still continue to invest in the tradition channels, but I think we’ll definitely see by the end of this year that we are spending more, year-on-year, on digital and social.”
The #DriverDuels campaign is set to run until the end of March when the winner of Australia’s best driver will be revealed. However, it is expected that due to the initial success – some 60,000 downloads of the app have already taken place – that the digital and social activity will continue to roll.
“We will definitely see the implementation of a phase two at the end of March,” said Whish-Wilson, “as this sits firmly in our road safety messaging and will continue to form the backbone of our main communication channels.”
Other aspects of the digital campaign implemented by Edge include a series of tools that allow users to create personalised and sharable content; the option for people to challenge their mates to their own ‘Driver Duel’ through Facebook and Twitter; the ability to create a ‘prank news story’ – using Facebook connect to pull personal details into one of a number of spoof, newspaper-style stories and a quiz and ‘What’s your movie star driving style,’ which helps users discover whether they drive like Mr Bean or James Bond.
Edge managing partner and strategy director, Richard Parker told AdNews: "What we're doing with the campaign newsroom for AAMI really reflects what we stand for as an agency - we believe that traditional media and marketing is only half of the story, and that smart brands will increasingly invest more in owned media, generating earned media and using paid in the third instance to amplify the content and conversations that are taking place around the brand.”
“We don't think any other agencies in Australia right now are doing this in the way we are.”
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