What do you do when your competition shells out billions on advertising and celebrity endorsements? Simple. You give your product to their customers, and make them the celebrities.
Ok, it's not that simple, but that's the spirit behind Swift and HTC's Creatography influencer campaign.
OBJECTIVE
Increase awareness of the flagship HTC One smartphone outside of HTC's tech fanboys.
STRATEGY
Embracing the independent spirit of the HTC brand, we thought… let's find a like-minded creator. Better yet, let's find three. Five. Or more. Let's ask them to push the phone to its creative limits, and watch what happens.
But, who? Swift interviewed dozens nationwide, settling on a team of 7. (When your group includes a mad scientist, basement dancing sensation, viral filmmakers, and style photographers, choosing one is hard).
It's also really hard to pull off. In 10 weeks, we criss-crossed the globe, creating video profiles, and briefing each influencer to create content for their own channels — using only the HTC One.
OUTCOME
The results were stratospheric — literally. (YouTube celeb Colin Furze sent the phone into space). Our influencers authored more than 100 pieces of content to 5.4 million fans, reaching 34 million feeds across Instagram, Vine, and YouTube, which ignited an 81% increase in overall reach of HTC social content. To date, their content has been shared more than 36,000 times. Creatography influencers inspired 3,000 fans to submit to become the 8th Creatographer. Brand effects studies shows 7% lift in brand favorability among target demographic.
Let's face it, in both perception and practice, many influencer efforts are pretty see-through. Wave some money, and get a quick, fleeting burst. They're transactional, not authentic. And they don't move the needle.
HTC's Creatography program was revolutionary — and worthy of this award — for turning these notions on their head in several ways:
All this added up to a more authentic form of influence, and the results were stratospheric. Our influencers authored more than 100 pieces of content to 5.4 million fans, reaching 34 million feeds across Instagram, Vine, and YouTube, which ignited an 81% increase in overall reach of HTC social content. To date, their content has been shared more than 36,000 times. Creatography influencers inspired 3,000 fans to submit to become the crowdsourced 8th Creatographer. Brand effects studies shows 7% lift in brand favorability among target demographic (18-24 year olds).
Phew.
