West of England
Case studies
THE CIPR PRIDE AWARDS 2008
WEST OF ENGLAND REGION
14. Best Use of New Media
Name: Tai Chi Farmers for Love OM
Entrant: Bray Leino
Client: Federation of Organic Milk Groups
Background
Bray Leino was appointed by the Federation of Organic Milk Groups in December 2007 to create a new generic campaign promoting organic milk to consumers. Bray Leino developed the ‘Love OM’ creative platform to communicate the benefits of choosing organic milk as an everyday product. Love OM has a an entertaining tone, utilising a contemporary and light-hearted take on esoteric and alternative philosophies to achieve cut-through and create ‘water-cooler’ moments amongst a broad range of UK shoppers and ultimately prompting a switch from conventional to organic milk when in the dairy aisle.
Objectives
Intending to convey the concept that organic milk is an accessible and affordable source of wellbeing, Bray Leino came up with the idea of organic dairy farmers taking up the ancient Chinese practice of Tai Chi in order to increase the level of wellbeing in every pint of organic milk. The story was not only intended to achieve cut-through in print and broadcast media, providing a platform for FOMG representatives, including real farmers, to talk about the benefits of their product, but also to drive traffic to the Love OM campaign website and maximise the dissemination of the key messages via social media and other online channels.
Planning
The key to the success of the project would be to earn consumer engagement through a level of implied participation. Cut-through would be achieved by ensuring flexible, entertaining and inspiring visual collateral as well as good copy.
A press release would be accompanied by the launch of quirky and humorous web content. The story would be supported by quotes from farmers to provide authenticity and qualify the claim that Tai Chi was in vogue amongst organic farmers and had a positive effect on the wellbeing of their cows and the quality of their milk.
Implementation
With the help of a Tai Chi master, Bray Leino created a seven-day programme of Tai Chi moves that could be easily learnt by the public and farmers alike. Each move was translated into the ‘language of farming’ to carry the heritage and origin of the product.
Bray Leino then filmed seven farmers, herdsmen and tanker drivers demonstrating the moves in their fields and farmyards, and amongst their cows.
This footage was then converted into video stream collateral and stills photography to provide content for dedicated web pages at main Love OM website, www.love-om.com, and on social media site YouTube.
At Love-om.com, which was conceived and designed by Bray Leino, visitors could log on and play the videos, follow the Tai Chi moves themselves and learn more about how and why organic milk offered benefits to them, the environment and the cows that produce it.
The videos were uploaded to YouTube, phased over a seven-day period around the release to print and broadcast media. Several farmers, recruited and briefed by Bray Leino, were on hand to give interviews and demonstrate the Tai Chi moves to broadcast media at their farms.
Creativity
To ensure that the Tai Chi project was appealing to the media, Bray Leino positioned the concept as the idea of a group of organic dairy farmers who, as part of their commitment to ensuring as high a level of wellbeing as possible on their farms, had taken up Tai Chi with their cows and were sharing their moves with the general public.
An amusing press release was issued to UK media uncovering this rather esoteric practice and leaking the footage of the farmers doing Tai Chi via email attachments, links to YouTube and SMS messaging to journalists’ mobile phones.
The story was sold in to a wide media list which included the BBC’s central news gathering service and the Press Association. BBC News Gathering chose to share the story with the network and PA filed copy on its wire. Bray Leino also sold the story in to regional media across the country, using the network of demonstration and spokesperson farmers to give a local hook.
The resulting national print, radio and TV coverage carried the story across the country and uptake rolled out for several weeks, sparking web visits from people throughout the UK and subsequently around the world.
Results
The story was released to press and broadcast media on Friday 11 April, generating 38 pieces of national and regional print coverage including The Times, Metro series, Western Mail and Western Daily Express, online cut-through on The Times Online, Metro Online and BBC News and Radio 1 Online.
Fourteen radio slots were also secured, including features on BBC Radio Two’s Chris Evans and Sarah Kennedy shows, Chris Moyles’ show on Radio 1 and interviews with Tai Chi farmers on BBC Radio 5 Live and Radio 4. The story was also covered across three slots on TV’s BBC Breakfast, featuring video footage and in interviews with farmers on BBC South and ITV Central News.
In the first week of going live there were almost 900 sessions on the website; a session being a series of clicks on the site by an individual visitor during a specific period. The average length of each session was four minutes and eight seconds - 12 times longer than the industry average of 20 seconds - indicating that people found the site’s content highly entertaining. There have also been 124 click-throughs from the coverage that appeared on BBC online.
Total viewings of YouTube footage: 1,918
Total audience (readers, listeners, viewers and online): 97,113,371
Total readers: 2,714,870
Total listeners: 50,575,000
Total viewers: 7,481,000
Total online readers: 36,342,501
AVE: £653,970
ROI: 5,590%
Project budget (including staff/retainer time)
a) £0 to £100,000
Total budget: £11,500 (fee and costs)