Challenge

In 2018, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu invested $20bn in content (set to increase by 40% by 2020). They now reach 250m highly valuable subscribers. The problem for brands? No ads.

YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat reach 2.5bn mass market and millennial audiences with free content. The problem for brands? Skippable ads mean forgettable brands.

As a result, brands still invest more than 40% of their media budget on TV, seeking to reach mass audiences in a meaningful way. The problem? TV is bleeding audiences due to streaming: “All adults audiences” are down by 10% in the US while “18-24 youth” are down by 48% in the UK (2015-2019)

Our challenge was clear: To show our clients and media owners that we can attract and therefore monetise the attention of an extremely valuable audience.

Solution

Three years ago we decided to diversify from planning and buying media to also producing and activating powerful entertainment ideas that could matter to millions of people, attract media owners and, as a result, add value to clients.

To succeed we would have to become equally credible across the crafts of the entertainment business, the digital economy business and brand marketing, so we hired entertainment professionals and integrated them within our existing team.   

As most of our clients were desperately seeking to reach and engage the elusive ‘youth audience’, market research indicated that we should prioritise looking for new ‘young talent show’ ideas that could come to life with new digital platforms.  

By starting to behave as an entertainment business, we got producers from all over the world to start pitching their new show ideas to us.

That’s when we first came across Street Stars; a one-page “talent show for street performers” idea from India, where the audience could vote for the winners through digital payment donations.

As Street Stars felts so effortlessly youthful and social by nature, we invested $25,000 ourselves to buy the global exclusive rights for 3 years.

After a year of creative development and pitches to content buyers at MipCom in Cannes, we succeeded in getting it commissioned by VK.com, Russia’s #1 social media network.

To make the show work financially and operationally we developed and sold innovative brand activation packages, tailor-made for clients’ marketing objectives.

Sberbank, Russia’s #1 bank, wanted to increase usage of its p2p money transfer platform, so it become the provider of viewers’ digital payments as a part of voting mechanics to street performers.

Jacobs coffee aimed to increase awareness and to drive trial of its new “Jacobs Monarch 3 in 1” on-the-go product, so we activated on the ground coffee experiences across 30 street performances.

FWD.Lab fashion brand promoted its streetwear range by becoming the official apparel brand, while Universal Music offered one year contract for the winning street performer.

Result

• Over 7 weeks of Street Stars on VK.com, our clients reached 30,000,000 millennial Street Stars viewers through premium branded content and entertainment marketing activities
• $20,000 of public donations to 24 street performers across five Russian cities was made using Sberbank's p2p money transfer platform
• Jacobs served 10,000 cups of new ‘Jacobs Monarch 3 in 1’ on-the-go coffee and increased awareness of the new product
• Universal Music is launching the winner’s The Maya Secret new album who now has 11,000 existing VK followers
• At the Moscow grand final, in front of 1,000 fans and 3,000,000 online viewers all clients delivered a differentiating B2B experience to their key trade customers
• By taking the risk to acquire and activate the rights to Street Stars, we have gained $200k of profit, covering 8x our initial investment