Loeries Grands Prix for youth market campaigns
Whose mother wouldn't be proud if her creative child brought home a highly treasured bird, the Loerie Grand Prix award, after a weekend in Margate, KwaZulu-Natal? It's been almost a week since the excitement of the Loeries festival weekend and today we find out more about the concepts that won the judges' hearts, featuring Trigger Communications and the duo of Net#work BBDO and Gloo Digital Design.
Both promotions - Nike ‘Be true pop-up store' in Communication Design - Architecture, Interior Design & Environmental Graphics and 5FM ‘Youngblood5' in Experiential Digital Mixed-Media Campaign - were aimed at the youth market.
Integrated design
The “Nike Pop Up” campaign, by full service digital agency Trigger, integrated design with digital marketing and one-to-one consumer engagement. The store not only served as retail space for the brand, but also a physical hub where the brand engages with a network of creative individuals and consumers alike. The campaign leveraged a digital blog that attracts consumers and collaborators, all of which is accessible via a mobile platform.
Speaking about the winning campaign, Roelof van Wyk, Trigger creative head, says, “If a brand wants to embed itself into youth culture, it not only needs to use the mediums that are shaping the youth culture, but must also embed itself inside the message. Art, fashion, music and digital media heavily influence youth culture. We needed to integrate these into the brand, and vice versa, rather than simply try to advertise our way into the market.”
The ‘Pop Up' campaign was no classic ad campaign, continues Van Wyk. “This was a six-month creative programme centred on a retail space in Melville, Johannesburg. The space is designed to not only perform as a retail store but also a platform for physical consumer engagements that feature a mix of contemporary art, fashion and music events.”
“The digital platforms we build are critical to the success of the campaign. They support and promote ongoing connection and collaboration between DJs, artists, and designers,” adds Gavin Rooke, MD of Trigger. The Nike “Be True” blog features 28 such collaborators.
“We then maximise our reach into social networks by these individuals who broadcast their interpretation of the Nike brand in a relevant and authentic way to our target market via platforms like Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Google and FaceBook. What's more, we also build a captive audience that allows us to continue communication at a 1-to-1 level.”
Combined initiative
A combined initiative between Net#work BBDO and Gloo Digital Design for 5FM Youngblood was also awarded the elusive Grand Prix in the Digital Mixed-Media category. The aim of the campaign was to help 5FM commemorate Youth Day through an interactive cyberspace portal that works similar to the FaceBook and MySpace.
The target audience was 16 - 24 year old youths of all backgrounds in SA, a core that is generally switched on and technically savvy. The two-way communications platform wasn't a traditional blog or forum, but rather an interactive environment that communicates the brand energy and allows 5FM to understand the key issues on the minds of its key listeners. Youngblood provided youth with a platform to create and discussed their own topics of concern amongst themselves. The most discussed ‘cause' would then be run by 5FM as a real-world nationwide campaign.
According to Pete Case, creative director for Gloo, “[The] Youngblood5 site contained hard-hitting copy and visual attitude aimed at connecting with the youth. A dynamic site allowing visitors to create a ‘cause' and then see how other users of the site feel about that same topic. It includes a dynamic map that allows users to also compare how different regions of our country are feeling about topics.
“Awareness posters designed by well-known artists were placed in schools to drive audience to the site. The posters were then adapted and offered as downloadable screensavers. Stickers could also be created on the site, and a selection of these was turned into real stickers, published in youth-based printed magazines nationwide, helping drive traffic back to the site,” adds Case.
“Over 1000 causes and 5000 comments were created within the first three months of the campaign, 80% of the site content being generated by the audience. Due to the campaign's success, 5FM [is] currently launching the project into its second phase.”
“Unprecedented”
According to Mike Schalit, the teen##chief and co-founder of Net#work BBDO who was also awarded the inaugural Loeries Creative Achievement Award on 26 July 2008, this latest Grand Prix for Net#work BBDO “brings the total number to an impressive and unprecedented 15. This means it has notched up one for each year of its existence. I guess that's one way of reminding us to act our age or helps us work out how young we still are.”
Apart from its Grand Prix with Net#work BBDO, Gloo also scooped three Gold, five Silver and eight Bronze Loeries this year. “Our collaborations with other agencies enabled us to achieve this massive achievement. Considering our size... it's is a massive achievement,” concludes Case.
About Tshepiso Seopa
Tshepiso Seopa was a junior journalist at Bizcommunity.com.
