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Stuff blows out 16 candles and launches a new campaign to give its audience the feels

The way the word ‘digital’ is thrown about in the media industry suggests it’s a platform still in its early days. And while many brands are still coming to terms with digital capabilities, Stuff is celebrating its 16th birthday. In that time the news provider has built up a monthly audience of two million New Zealanders. Now, coinciding with its birthday, it is putting the focus on the audience, with a refreshed version of its ‘Go Full Spectrum’ campaign via Shine, to remind audiences what it does for them.

Reaching the audience milestone, as well as celebrating its sixteenth birthday, Fairfax Media national brand manager Phillipa Cameron says Stuff thought it was a really good time to remind the audience the role it plays in their lives so it’s given a new look to the campaign, first seen in 2014.

“We are lucky enough to be invited into [our audience’s] lives multiple times a day with mobile devices etc. And we’re really humbly aware of the roles we get to play and interacting with them and making them feel different things throughout the day, throughout the week and the month.”

Rolled out on radio two weeks ago and on print and digital today, the campaign covers the spectrum of emotions people feel when they engage with the brand. It covers making people smile, to making them angry and sad and Cameron says “brands that are rooted in an emotional place with consumers are much stronger”.

The radio spots feature three ads in which a playful use of sound is used to tell the story. The sounds include a woman ordering food, a party going wrong and a woman laughing.

Cameron says the ads are designed to stand out and intrigue listeners because it isn’t clear until the end what is being heard.

On digital, the campaign plays with the colour in Stuff’s logo to make audiences hungry by zooming out of vibrant foods.

The print portion of the campaign includes a banner with an image of food, again designed to make the audience hungry, and an image of homeless man raising the issue of ‘stuff audiences should know about’.

“We talk about the stories that need to be told and that’s a core role that the brand plays in our audience’s lives and what this campaign does is reflect that,” Cameron says. “It’s exactly the type of content and exactly the type of discussions that New Zealanders have every day and the role we play to either facilitate, to uncover or tell the stories they need to know, should know or want to know.”

When ‘Go Full Spectrum’ was first rolled out in 2014 (also with Shine), focus was put on Stuff’s ability to provide content from around the world as well as closer to home. Now Cameron says that message has evolved to reminding audiences how those stories makes them feel.

“This isn’t just about heroing the range of content but is also a reminder that we make you laugh and we are at that dramatic moment of breaking news,” she says.

The evolution of the campaign reflects the way Stuff has evolved as a brand in the past 16 years. Cameron describes the brand as being “visionary” from the start and it has shown that since with its launch of Stuff Nation in 2012 and its recent partnership with TVNZ. It’s a characteristic Cameron says will continue on into the brand’s future.

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