The Dubs worked with the production team behind Docfactory’s ‘Shadows of Liberty’ film, to develop the accompanying website and inspire people to ‘take action’.
‘Shadows of Liberty’ is a film that takes an intrepid journey through the darker corridors of the American media landscape, where global media conglomerates exercise extraordinary political, social, and economic power.
The Dubs is retained by Google to provide strategic and creative consultancy for international brands looking to utilise and innovate across YouTube, Google+, Streetview, GDN and Mobile.
The Charcoal Lane mini-series marks the start of our continuing relationship with Citibank Australia. The corporate communications arm of the bank was launching its social media channels and looking for entertaining content to drive audience engagement. The timing of the launch was to coincide with Citi Australia’s sponsorship of international golf tournament the Presidents Cup.
Charcoal Lane itself is a Melbourne-based restaurant run as a social enterprise by Mission Australia. Naturally situated in the foodie capital of Australia, it’s staffed by Aboriginal and disadvantaged youths, giving them training and experience in the hospitality field. Once equipped with skills and knowledge, 70% go on to find further employment in the industry.
Using footage filmed for a corporate video about Citi’s sponsorship of the President’s Cup, our challenge was to create a narrative around the restaurant and Citi Australia’s involvement that would work as 4-part mini-series but also as 4 separate stand-alone vignettes. The outcome was a series focusing on two current employees, taking us on a journey of discovery about what the restaurant does; day to day life of those on the programme; event sponsorship of the Presidents Cup with catering by Charcoal Lane; and looking towards the future, what’s in store next.
Driving traffic with our Facebook and Twitter content calendars, the videos spiked user engagement during the campaign whilst also generating ongoing, positive PR for the program itself. To view the full series: facebook.com/citiaustralia?sk=videos
We love this video, created by the John St agency in Canada:
Whilst we produce and manage social media strategies, campaigns and content here at The Dubs, we also recognise that it’s crucial to have a sense of humour when it comes to social media and the associated rhetoric surrounding it.
As parodies go, ‘Pink Ponies’ is up there with Nathan Barley.
All journeys start with a first step and Bjorn Troch’s was the first step on the 900km Camino de Santiago pilgrims trail in Spain. But why he was there is the interesting part of the story.
Bjorn is a smart, globally minded, young Belgian guy who’s been involved in digital media and worked as a social media consultant for 5 years now. About a year ago he decided to do something pretty amazing.
Donning the moniker ‘The Social Traveller’, Bjorn decided to travel the world and expand his horizons but with a twist.
In his own words -
‘I travel around the world without any guidebooks. I completely rely on what people from different race, standing, religion or culture tell me online or offline. People guide & invite me to their countries, friends, homes & lives. Basically exploring a hyper connected world. I also let people challenge me to do the most amazing things around the world. This way I learn a lot about myself, other cultures and countries.’
Serendipity and the whims of fate, all spurred on by Bjorn’s online social connections have led Bjorn to some pretty amazing places and experiences over the past year. Bjorn is seriously hooked up on social platforms like Google+, Facebook , YouTube and blogger and thru his social network people challenge him to do things such as hiking the 900km of the Camino de Santiago, crossing India on a Royal Enfield, Climbing Adam’s Peak, hitch-hiking around New Zealand and running the Sydney City to Surf, all things he has now done in the past year.
I met Bjorn through one of his interesting twists of connections actually. One of the first people he met when he started on his walk of the Camino de Santiago was an Australian girl named Hannah, who he got to hang out with. Fast forward nearly a year and Bjorn is in a crowd of about 100,000 waiting to run in the Sydney City to Surf and lo and behold there is Hannah again!
Debbi, one of our producers just happens to be good friends with Hannah and so she got to meet Bjorn and subsequently introduced him to me…
I was fascinated by what he was doing and invited him to come in and tell me more. As soon as he sparked up Google+ and I saw the breadth of what he was doing and the way he was documenting the journey through the integration of all the Google products into Google+ I was excited and frankly inspired.
I think there is a real possibility that a lot more people will be hearing about Bjorn Troch soon, so as Bjorn says ‘Be Social’, go check him out, friend him, challenge him even!
Well, you can now own an actual pair of Marty’s futuristic sneaks, because Nike has decided “it’s about time“.
Nike is releasing 1500 pairs of the shoes, all of which will be auctioned on eBay, with Net proceeds of the auction going toward fighting Parkinson’s disease.
We have been working with Mambo, one of Australia’s most loved clothing brands, to help expand their social presence as a reflection of their core brand values of surf, art and music.
Now under the leadership of Angus Kingsmill and having re-branded and re-positioned themselves in the market, we are working with Mambo to bring brand awareness through social and digital channels.
‘Mambassadors’ such as Erin McNaught, Cheyenne Tozzi, Luke Cheadle and Benji Marshall will be involved in ongoing social media activities and events to engage and deliver a deeper brand message for all Mambo fans.
The Mambo brand brings a wonderful cultural history with it as well as an exciting vision of the future, including expanding into foreign markets introducing the world of Mambo to brand new audiences.
We look forward to helping Mambo spread their unique vision, sense of humour, irreverance and amazing design sense to an ever expanding audience!
The Dubs MD, Josh Frith, was recently interviewed on Sky News about the importance of ‘brand stories’, find out what he had to say about this cornerstone of a digital strategy:
Josh Frith, Managing Director of digital engagement agency The Dubs, reiterates that content, not the brand, is king when creating a social media campaign. Frith offers his five key elements for great social content.
It will come as no surprise to you that individuals today are becoming far more self absorbed and are increasingly pursuing topics of interest and relevance to themselves with people they know. For brands today, this means they need to work a lot harder to engage with their audiences.
Marketing today embraces far more than traditional advertising and includes the convergence of entertainment, media and brands. Keith Weed, the chief marketing and communication officer at Unilever said that “We are going to have to make our brands media properties in their own right. We have to connect much more with content and make our brands more relevant.” This is where social content comes in.
Social content uses social media to connect with an audience. The premise of social content is that it is authentic. The content has a genuine story to tell that sparks social engagement with an audience. Brands can be involved and the driver of this social content for the purpose of connecting with their audience, but it is most definitely not an ad – it cannot be overly promotional or used to push a product or service.
So why is social content so effective? Consumers are moving away from visiting traditional websites to become part of the connections and interactions made possible only through social networking sites. Facebook is the leading contender of social networking sites receiving 25 percent of traffic on the internet.
The potential consumers of a brand are actively participating in social media providing the perfect opportunity for a brand to form direct relationships and encourage advocacy. It provides the ideal platform to tap in to the most effective way of selling a product – peer to peer and word of mouth marketing.
It provides an opportunity for brands to research their target audience and find out what they are interested in from a social point of view. This then provides a lead for a brand to understand how they can intrinsically become part of the conversation providing real genuine content that consumers will engage with.
Social content helps brands achieve a balance between entertainment and education, satisfying a consumer need without the need for over the top promotion.
No conversation – no social campaign! It is important to take authentic content and build on it in a conversational tone that will engage an audience to respond to something that is of inherent interest to them. A campaign that is too heavily skewed and based on an advertising mindset will fail. When creating content, keep in mind that a brand can be the initiator, the host or the opener of the content, but never the hero piece.
If the content does not generate conversation, there is no social content campaign. Just because something is uploaded on Facebook does not automatically make it a social content campaign! This is why it is so important to get the content right.
The five key elements to social content
1. Research, research, research – Use social media to research what your target audience are interested in. There is no point spending hours creating content that your audience won’t engage with.
2. Keep your content authentic – Make sure your content is genuine and tells a real story that your audience will engage with. Avoid anything that is overly promotional.
3. Keep your concept simple – Brands often fail by trying to over complicate the content. A simple easy to follow story line that can be viewed and understood quickly will have more chance of succeeding.
4. Keep your content short – There might be a lot to say, but keep it short and draw your viewers in quickly. Include the hook to the story in the first 10 seconds and keep your content to a maximum of 1 – 1.5 minutes.
5. Keep it conversational – Understand who your target audience is to develop a tone that your audience will engage with. Avoid a corporate tone as this style is out of place on social media.
The Dubs Managing Director, Josh Frith, was recently invited to speak about digital storytelling at The Internet Show in Melbourne, his deck from the day follows:
