
V Skills
Frucor
Issue 43 | June 2017
Agency
TKT Sydney
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Paul Nagy Creative Directors Brendan Willenberg, Ben Clare Senior Creatives Ollie Beeston, James Beswick Head of Design Daniel Mortensen Creative Agency Producer John Pannocchia
Production Team
Production Companies Kapwa Studioworks, The Woolshed
Other Credits
Founding Director Cate Stuart-Robertson Senior Account Director Hanne Haugen Senior Account Manager Marshall Campbell Planning Director Rob Dougan MEDIA OMD
Date
November 2016
Background
V was a popular energy drink in Australia, so popular that Australia is one of the few countries where Red Bull was not the market leader.
The energy drink category was in decline and V was in danger of losing its status as the number one brand. The job was to recapture the hearts and minds of Aussie millennials, through a campaign that pivoted off a limited edition can design.
Idea
Millennials have had access to masses of information and, when it comes to education, they were better off than any previous generation. But, somehow, they had missed out on the essentials needed for navigating everyday life, like knowing how to change a tyre or fold a fitted sheet.
V was all about making people a bit better and was well known as "The Massive Hit That Improves You A Bit'.
There was definitely room for improvement, both in millennials' basic life skills and in the multitude of frankly boring 'how-tos' available to them.
Enter V Skills, 24 pieces of informative, entertaining branded content, focused on teaching millennials the skills to make them be a bit better at... life. The idea was to collaborate with creators and influencers who knew the audience well, helping millennials be better at everything from tying a tie and asking someone out, to avoiding alien abduction and knowing llamas from alpacas.
Results
The campaign resulted in 63.4 million impressions and 23 million video views across digital and social media, reaching over 80% of the target audience of 18-24-year-olds. This included 14 million views of a viral video, created with a viral video production company and shared by celebrities such as Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent. Engagement on V's Facebook page was up 1060% during the campaign period compared to the previous quarter and a Google Brand Lift Study showed the campaign achieved a best in class ad recall of 44.9% and an above average lift in brand favourability of 9.6%.
Sales of Skills cans were a whopping 11% over the monthly average and 19% higher than the previous quarter's results, equating to millions more cans sold
Our Thoughts
The way this works is there's a life hack subject flagged on the can. Parallel Parking, for instance. Scan the can with your smartphone and it automatically opens up video content created by a bunch of creators (RackaRacka, Infinity Squared, Aunty Donna and animator Edwin de Swardt).
Aunty Donna's "Be A Bit Better At Jumping Over Stuff" made me laugh.
How to tell the difference between a llama and an alpaca is weird. How to be a bit better at conflict resolution is funny and weird.
You get the picture?
Everything about this is smart: the choice of YouTubers, the way the tech makes it easy to view the videos, the fact that the experience centres on the can itself.
Sick, as those millennials say.