Category: Best use or integration of digital media
Advertiser: CRAFTSMAN
Product/Service: CRAFTSMAN
Agency: Y&R CHICAGO
Chief Creative Officer: Bob Winter (Y&R Chicago)
Creative Director: Jon Eckman (Y&R Chicago)
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Richard Fischer (Y&R Chicago)
Associate Creative Director/Writer: Evan Thompson (Y&R Chicago)
Designer - Print & Outdoor: Thomas Nicholas (Y&R Chicago)
Designer - Show Opener: (Optimus)
Account Supervisor: Priya Bordia (Y&R Chicago)
Account Director: Kevin Babcock (Y&R Chicago)
Live Action And Digital Production Company: (Tool)
Executive Producer: Brian Latt (Tool)
Agency Producer: Kara Pierce (Y&R Chicago)
Head Of Integrated Production: Brian Smego (Y&R Chicago)
Director Of Innovation: Matt Witt (Y&R Chicago)
Executive Producer: Dustin Callif (Tool)
Executive Producer: Oliver Fuselier (Tool)
Director: Matt Ogens (Tool)
Interactive Director: Grant Skinner (Tool)
Editor: Mark Panik (Don't Panik!)
Music: (Beta Patrol)
Media placement: Digital Live Feeds - Online - August 14, 2011
Media placement: Website - Online - August 14, 2011
Media placement: Social Media - Twitter, Facebook, Etc. - August 14, 2011
Campaign Description
In the US, reality TV shows (both broadcast and online) and brands are not strangers. Many big brands will add their names to a reality show in order to get their brand in front of a huge audience. However, no one was really involving the audience and making them a part of shows. Brands are commonly seen as just passive sponsors to content created by someone else.
That’s why we wanted to create a live reality show that was not just brought to you by Craftsman, but whose very premise brought to life what Craftsman stood for and involved the audience directly in the outcome of the show.
Effectiveness
Craftsman, the iconic 80 year-old tool brand, wanted to increase their social media fan base, and at the same time, attract a new, younger generation of followers.
In our strategy and execution, we relied on 1, simple truth: That hardcore tool guys love to share their tool knowledge with others. So we created a unique, live form of branded content where viewers could actually help us build a handyman from scratch: The first live, interactive reality show: SCREW*D.
Over the course of 3 months, we dropped the 'unhandiest' guy we could find in the middle of nowhere, alone. With just a set of Craftsman tools, and had him fend for himself.
The only way he could survive was to rely on the advice coming in from the online community of Craftsman fans and DIY’ers who gave their advice via Twitter, Facebook, and Livestream.
We dropped our hero, Alan, in 3 remote locations: the Louisiana Bayou, the Mojave Desert and high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. With each location, Alan was given a set of tools and 1 objective: get out alive.
Through a live video stream, people could watch his adventures and post advice to the Craftsman wall or tweet to Alan’s Twitter account. Each post was fed to him through an earpiece, and allowed Alan, in real-time, to interact with the Craftsman community and tackle the tasks at hand.
Throughout each challenge, we also posted clues and hints on Craftsman’s Facebook page and on craftsmanscrewd.com. Blueprints and instructions Alan desperately needed were given to viewers to help them not just tell Alan what to do, but to help them guide the story where it needed to go next.
Implementation
As the show took place exclusively online, all attempts to draw the viewers in to be a part of the content also took place online. We reached out to tool bloggers and their followers to encourage people to tune-in with their advice. We offered exclusive content on Craftsman’s Facebook page to entice participants to see more. We also ran YouTube pre-roll, just like any other reality show. But the main difference in our message? Viewers weren’t just encouraged to watch, they were encouraged to tune-in live to save our hero from himself. Because without them, he really was SCREW*D.
Outcome
The main objective of this campaign was to increase the amount of Facebook fans for the 80 year-old Craftsman brand, and make the brand more relatable to a new generation of DIYers. In the 3 and 1/2 months of this project, Craftsman’s Facebook fans more than doubled from 350,000 to over 700,000. SCREW*D had over 30,000 viewers tune-in during the live streaming events. With episodes of the show resulting in over 4.5m online views. We had over 94m earned media impressions, and YouTube drove nearly 20,000 visits to the Craftsman YouTube page and over 11,000 visits to Craftsman.com, resulting in an increase of 15% in online sales.