Synopsis
Based on the idea of 6 degrees of separation Tooheys Extra Dry documented 4 young Australians putting this theory to the test and aim to reach their creative hero. Picked from a large group of applicants the four chosen ones respectively went after skater and Jackass performer Bam Marghera, Joel and Benji Madden from Good Charlotte, comedian Will Arnett and director Dave Myer.
The digital challenge was to create an environment for all of the resulting content that would be engaging for a digitally savvy audience that easily sees through non-credible ideas.
Solution
With the understanding that our audience wouldn't return to a campaign site over and over again, we created numerous destinations that served the content. Next to MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Heavy, a mobile site and urban tastemaker portals, the main showroom for the videos was
www.6beersofseparation.com
Over the course of the campaign the site went through three iterations. Each one carried a unique tone and reflected the state of the project at that time.
Casting:
Taking the visual metaphor of a garage or studio, this version was all about exposing your character and your skills to the world.
Trailer:
The cast was now chosen but in a holding position. They were shown next to a window, as they were facing the journey to meet their individual heroes.
Show:
Enter the mega city! Following a green thread and travelling the globe, our cast was making connections, doing their best to prove that you can meet anyone in the world in six steps.
Results
The contestants had a big journey ahead of them, and as such, we were expecting big results. But the actual engagement was far beyond. With the focus on the content and not necessarily on building a beautiful destination site, we wanted to see that the target audience was engaging with the content and not just "dropping by" then disappearing again. As mentioned, video content was published across MySpace, YouTube, Heavy, a mobile site and a campaign microsite.
6BOS saw a total of over 630,000 unique visits to all digital destinations, which is an average of 70,000 visits per month. The average time on site per visitor was 6 mins 45 seconds, which is outstanding given most web users expect short format when consuming content on video destinations such as YouTube (usually less than 3 mins).
In terms of content consumption, there were was a massive 679,480 video views. Heavy.com led the charge with a huge 547,359 views of video content. Overall, a whopping 66,685 hours of episode footage was watched across YouTube, MySpace, Heavy and the campaign microsite.
Mobile also proved to be a viable consumption channel, with 16,688 views of video content. Additionally, iTunes recorded just over 6,000 subscribers who downloaded epoisodes a huge 21,398 times.
These numbers go to prove that not only did the 6BOS campaign achieve incredible reach, it also truly engaged with its target audience, and proves that branded content for the web is a strategy worth pursuing.
