Episode 74 - Apple TV Ad Reviewed by Goodfella's Pizza and Bluestripe Group

This week’s Advertisers Watching Ads features Twitch influencers getting nosebleeds and an alien invasion. Confused yet? You should be! This Apple TV ad chosen by our partners Contagious made use of influencers in an intriguing takeover of their streams to announce a new TV show.

Was it too confusing or just the right amount of “wrong”? Did they get their targeting right? And will they have engaged viewers enough to find out more about what they’re teasing?

We’re joined by guests Sam Dolan (Head of Marketing, Goodfella’s Pizza) and Andy Oakes (Founder, Bluestripe Group). See what they had to say and watch the full ad in our latest episode.


Transcript

The following transcript is automatically generated so may not be 100% accurate, but will give you a good idea of what was discussed.

Tom Ollerton 0:07

Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads and discuss what's good and bad about them. This week's ad, it was helped to be chosen by our partners contagious.com so please go and check those goes out after the show. But before we see the ad, let's meet this week's special guests.

Samantha Dolan 0:29

Hey, I'm Sam, I'm the Head of Marketing at Goodfella's Pizza.

Andy Oakes 0:32

And Andy Oakes. I'm the founder of Bluestripe Group, the publisher of new digital age and e-commerce age.

Tom Ollerton 0:38

Right Let's see the ad.

Right. Andy, that is a cool video, but doesn't really explain everything that's going on. Could you help anyone who hasn't read up on this understand what the campaign was all about and how it works?

Andy Oakes 1:53

Yeah, sure. So this is Apple TV ad for the new TV, it's not even that new now, with a new show, Invasion, which is a great fake, dystopian future alien attack program, which I am a sucker for. What they've done here is they've taken over 16 streams on Twitch, which happened over four hours, I believe. This was back in October, where each of the streamers feigned getting a nosebleed as part of this alien invasion, which is a which is a scene that's mirrored in, I think, episode two of Invasion. There was no, this happened for about 30 minutes in each stream and then the individual influences. Sorry, should have said that they are Twitch-based influencers. Then went on to Twitter to continue the narrative. It confused a lot of people, and it's one of the things that when you see it in hindsight, you understand what it was for. But at the time, I think it confused a lot of people.

Tom Ollerton 2:52

So Sam, what do you think? Do you like it? Not impressed? Gives you a nosebleed?

Samantha Dolan 2:57

Do you know what? I am. You know what? I'm a sucker for things like this, and I think this, there's a big trend at the minute, isn't there? Which I'm deal know far more about the me around like PR of all digital than things that go on in the digital space that can then go on and be PR. And this is clearly a big play, a big play in that area. I think confusion, they wouldn't and will come on. Obviously, you'll ask the question about what could they have done differently? I think confusion was probably something that they intended to do because confusion creates chatter, right? When you look at Twitter, it's all over Twitter. What's this? What's going on? What is it? And it's almost building up the kind of big reveal. So I'm a big fan of tapping into kind of popular culture in an unbranded way to then make what you do in really relevant. So I thought, when I got my head around it because it took me a while, but again, you know, I went looking, which a lot of people will have done that have gone looking for. What is this all about? So I think it's super smart. I think this show and again, I haven't watched it, but my parents are watching it, for example, or they wouldn't be target market for that kind of thing. So was it a bit too clever for its own good in terms of its targeting? Maybe. But, I think it's genius personally.

Tom Ollerton 4:09

Andy, has this been targeted the right way? Was Twitch the right channel?

Andy Oakes 4:13

There are other things in play here. One of the things that has become apparent since the launch of Apple TV is a lack of take up in the, in a younger demographic. So what they're trying to do here. I mean, you know, Invasion was trialed in all the usual ways. It was all over the Sky Planner. They did run their own bits for it. And, you know, the traditional ad campaign was there. What they were trying to do here, I think, is to try to hit that very hard for the TV companies to find audience of that of a younger demographic who they're trying to find through, through the Twitch platform. Where they've slightly got it wrong is understanding how people stream and understanding how people view streams in that... The complaints you read about this and I've got no complaints about the execution or anything else other than the... And I think the formatting is great. I think what they've slightly got wrong is that this is people's, this is the younger generations' entertainment stream that they've just hijacked for 30 minutes. In terms of a format, this could be a five minute play rather than a 45-minute play, or however long it lost on individual Twitch's streams.

Tom Ollerton 5:17

Is there legs to this kind of idea? Like, is it going to be like raised eyebrows, like, "Oh, God, like it's another take over." Or is this something that needs to be fine tuned and could work better?

Samantha Dolan 5:27

I think not yet. There won't be yet. They'll become a point where this will at the minute. It wasn't necessarily associated with the brand when it started. It was done to create this chatter and the brand comes at the end. And I think right now people are fine with that. I think it's, it's developing the way we work with influencers, which I think from a marketer's point of view is a really good thing because again, we're past the point of just paying an influencer money to kind of put your brand on the screen. And so, you know, it needs to be done in a kind of genuine and authentic way. And I guess this felt like it was done in kind of... I guess the fact it was done as part of their stream made it quite authentic and genuine, even though it did upset a few people. But I think there is something in the right kind of wrong. I believe in that, and I think their objective was to get people talking about it.

Tom Ollerton 6:15

Does replicate a scene that's already been shown?

Andy Oakes 6:19

I suspect that when that's so there's an awful lot of confusion that I watched it having seen that seeing. So in in the show. There is setting a an American school, the aliens are ambling around, and it causes the kids, whatever aliens do, and it causes the kids to have nosebleeds and it's one of the sort of the big setups scenes that they first do the show. And it happens in different places. I recognize that because I've seen the show, I think you can see it from the point of view of everybody else watching. This is just influences. I mean, those plates sort of

Tom Ollerton 6:54

Sort of unrelated, but what is the famous... Is it Stranger Things? She gets a nosebleed when she uses her powers? Is that or is it...

Andy Oakes 7:02

It is as well. And that's talked about quite a bit in the Reddit thread. There was a bit of confusion. Is this Stranger Things?

Tom Ollerton 7:09

Really great thing about it for me was kind of how cheap it was to do from an influencer's perspective. Just get a bit of ketchup, you know, get the condiment tray out.

Samantha Dolan 7:12

I always think it's good to have a pot of bravery money. Again, as a marketer, I'd always advocate, do your big traditional reach, driving still but have a pot of, "Let's give it a go. Let's be first mover. Let's try some different stuff." That's clearly what they've done. And I love it.

Tom Ollerton 7:25

So what would made it better? What's the obvious improvement here?

Andy Oakes 7:28

I think understanding that you are cutting into people's entertainment time and understanding if you're taking 30 minutes of it, people come in, you know, come to streams. They want to attend live streams. If you take that 30 minutes away from people, then there's going to be a certain amount of upset. So I think they need to understand the streaming culture a little bit more. And you know, if you're going to do it, do it in a shorter, in a shorter format. But it's interesting, isn't it, because it's, you know, cutting into using streams. Fantastic. It's a function of the pandemic, isn't it? It's, you know, in-person activations aren't as easy at the moment. So having to do it through streams is, is really quite interesting. That's a really something that's come out of the pandemic, a new format. I really enjoy the way they've done that, and I think it's, it's a great way to get people looking at a show.

Tom Ollerton 8:16

All right, Sam. So what, what can the industry be learning from this? What is the takeaway from someone who maybe hasn't worked with influencers or is about to embark on an influencer brief? What are the key nuggets here?

Samantha Dolan 8:27

The brand doesn't have to be at the forefront of the start of the conversation. You know, we talked when we when we sat together on that stage, at Madfest, we talked about, you know, a lot about we like that to be there were real people or a big reveal. And actually, you can use influencers in the same way you know you can, you can get along and you'll get a lot of rumbling along, make it relevant to popular culture, whatever you want to do. And then the kind of big reveal at the end was a different evolving way to work with influencers, and branding doesn't always have to be first.

Andy Oakes 8:57

I think that Sam makes a really good point there, actually. It's evolution of the traditional way of working with, with influencers, it's not someone holding up a huge achievement on an Instagram feed. It's, it's an evolution of that. And I think it's in that sense, it's a very intelligent and clever piece of work.

Tom Ollerton 9:13

All right. So before we go, I'm going to get you guys to give this campaign a score out of five. On the count of three... One, two, three... There we have it.

Andy Oakes 9:26

I was gonna give a three and a half, but I couldn't, couldn't get my finger out.

Tom Ollerton 9:30

Now you've got to, got to have an unfortunate accident, I'm afraid. Thanks, guys. See you next week.

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