Mobile Telecoms/sms: "NON STOP GIG" Direct marketing by Saatchi & Saatchi

Category: Best Low Budget Campaign
Advertiser: TELECOM NZ
Product/Service: MOBILE SMS
Agency: SAATCHI & SAATCHI
Date of First Appearance: Nov 21 2009 12:00AM
Entrant Company: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Creative: Bex Radford (Saatchi & Saatchi)
Creative: Tim Howman (Saatchi & Saatchi)
Creative Director: Luke Chess (Saatchi & Saatchi)
Director of Strategy: Murray Streets (Saatchi & Saatchi)
Channel Planner: Nick Ascough (Starcom New Zealand)
Media Buyer: Ryan Jordan (Starcom New Zealand)
Deputy Creative Director: Tim Huse (Saatchi & Saatchi)
Media placement: Microsite with VIP Pre-Registration - c4tv.co.nz/thenonstopgig - 19 November 2009
Media placement: Social Media - Twitter, Facebook, c4tv.co.nz - 19 November 2009
Media placement: Street Posters - High youth traffic areas - 21 November 2009
Media placement: Street Teams - Young musicians promoting concert in malls during school holidays - 28/29 November 2009
Media placement: 3x15" pre-promo TVCs - C4 TV - 21 November - 5 December 2009
Media placement: 5xLive 30" TVCs - C4 TV - 6 December 2009

Describe the brief/objective of the direct campaign.
Telecom is New Zealand’s largest telecommunications company, but had only 2% market share of 15-24yr olds. They had a massive problem – how to promote a youth-targeted text product, Non-Stop Text, to a youth demographic who saw them as totally irrelevant. And to ensure that this engagement went longer than a few weeks, we also had to capture this demographic as a database. And we had to do it all on a budget of EU$41,500. Our aim was to engage the 15-24 yr old demographic not by advertising to them, but by engaging them with an experience that related directly to the product.

Explain why the creative execution was relevant to the product or service.
The demographic would have ignored any traditional advertising, as they viewed Telecom as completely irrelevant. We had to establish credibility for Telecom’s text-messaging product, by running our campaign in young people’s worlds, on young people’s terms.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective with reference to the projected response rates and desired outcome.
We held the Non-Stop Gig. It went for 12 hours straight. It happened exclusively online. It featured all our target’s favourite bands. Best of all, our power-hungry youth demographic could control the whole thing just by sending a text message. We advertised it just like any other concert and encouraged people to register as Non-Stop Gig VIPs. Then, after two weeks of pre-promotion, the gig went live. The audience sent a 12 hour avalanche of text messages - requesting tracks, kicking bands off stage, pulling bands on stage, making mash-ups happen and sharing their thoughts with the massive audience that stretched from the top to the bottom of New Zealand.

Describe the results in as much detail as possible with particular reference to the RESPONSE of the target audience including deliverability statistics, response rates, click throughs, sales cost per response, relationships built and overall return on investment.
Our goal was to engage at least 10% of our target market (15-24 yr olds who were part of C4TV’s viewing audience) during the pre-promotion period and the 12-hour gig, then capture their details into a database. During the two-week pre-promotion period more than 30% of our target market pre-registered as Non-Stop Gig VIPs – three times our target before the gig had even happened. During the 12 hours approx 46% of our target watched the gig as a unique viewer – nearly five times the target. We had an average of 3.8 text messages from each of our viewers and best of all, 47% of these text messages came from a Vodafone phone, Telecom’s main competitor.