Tapping into the same excitement humans get when seeing themselves on a big screen at the rugby or their name on a can of coke, Fonterra Brands has teamed up with Colenso BBDO and TVNZ Blacksand to give Facebook fans the thrill of seeing themselves on an actual TV ad, while consuming lots of Fonterra’s Kapiti icecream, with the help of technology from TVNZ Media Solutions.
Since September 1, the campaign has been asking fans to upload an ice-cream-eating-selfie to Kapiti’s Facebook pages (the 4 ½ Minute page or the main page). There, they are notified a TV2 timeslot when a Kapiti ad may run (e.g. during TV2’s Saturday Night Blockbuster Movie at 9:10pm), which fans can tune into to see if their selfies made it to the ad.
Each photo they upload throughout September also goes in the draw to win one of 20 $500 cash prizes or one holiday to Hawai’i.
The technology used to pull through live images from the Facebook page into the ad is never.no. The tool lets broadcasters integrate user-generated content into live television or second screen devices from social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+.
TVNZ content strategy manager Simone Hollows says the Kapiti campaign is the first time TVNZ has used never.no with an advertiser, and is in fact the first usage in the New Zealand market. Until now it has been used in shows for social aggregation, for example 7 Sharp, and in The Hobbit premiere to integrate Facebook comments, tweets, polls and SMS into TVNZ’s live TV coverage of the premiere. Hollows says it can pull user-generated social content into ads as late as one minute from broadcast.
She said having the tool allows TVNZ to tap into changing viewer trends. “Social media has had a massive impact on viewing habits, and it’s nice to tap into that, as well as multiscreen behaviour,”
The 4 ½ minute number comes from the apparent fact that eating a Kapiti ice cream takes 4 ½ minutes. The Facebook page likens eating Kapiti milk chocolate and caramel ice cream to taking a 4 ½ minute holiday, “Dive into the crème fraiche ice cream and ribbons of spiced caramel. Explore the hints of ginger as you leave the real world behind.”
Minna Reinikkala, Tip Top group marketing manager says “We are always looking for new ways to create engagement with our consumers, linking bought media with our owned assets. It’s great to see our consumers embracing the 4 ½ minute holiday idea by posting themed selfies on the Facebook page which we are featuring in our TV ad.”
In scheduling the ads, Hollows said media agency Mediacom came up with the “us” time for the campaign – the times when TV-watching individuals or couples would want to be sharing an indulgent icecream. “They wanted to tap into the indulgence time with Kapiti – we looked at a range of times and packages for Kapiti… from an ad point of view this campaign genuinely connects with the consumer in realtime, adding ‘us’ time and drilling deeper.”
Some say using the selfie in marketing is overdone for example this Tumblr, but judging by the social media comments and more than 400 guest-selfie-uploaders, Kapiti’s fans are still selfie-centric.
