Y&R Media NZ is rebranding itself Y&R Engage. “The name Y&R Media is no longer relevant in this day and age – it simply doesn’t describe our vision for media,” says national general manager Nicky Greville.
“Our vision for the team and our clients is to be the most creative engagement specialists in New Zealand. Quite simply, ‘media’ no longer commands the attention we need to drive business results and it’s only a portion of the work our team do every day.
“Therefore, we’ve renamed our business to reflect our roles today.
“Y&R Engage is more aligned to what our team strives for: to create amazing campaigns that command attention, that are different, that are explosive, that are brave and that ultimately change how people think and behave towards our clients’ brands.
“At Y&R Engage we believe our role is to creatively approach all channels with the objective of achieving maximum attention and engagement. Because if our activity isn’t sparking conversations about our clients’ brands then we’re not doing our jobs.”
Our recent launch for Arnott’s showcases this philosophy in action, Greville says.
“Arnott’s came to us interested in seeing how they could leverage one of New Zealand’s most established sporting equities; the All Blacks.
“Instead of taking the usual route and presenting something ‘black’ and a typical media schedule with high reach and frequency, we decided to create something a little more unexpected.
“For this campaign it was important that Arnott’s break the typical formula to generate a greater impact than other brands that were activating off the team. Added to this, we didn’t want the link to biscuits to feel like a giant leap, as can easily happen with high visibility partnerships.
“This led us away from a formal relationship with our sporting icons and down a less traditional, significantly more engaging one. A communication platform where a TV ad evolves into a movie.
“Movie trailers posing as TVCs starring an unexpected hero, promoting a soon-to-be released short film – one which Kiwis can star in themselves.
“The outcome was a platform that people simply can’t miss, a conversation that the media want to be part of and a campaign that people can participate in.”
“The communciation strategy for Arnott’s was baked into the campaign idea from its inception.”
Apocalypse Steve Hansen – Don’t Lose Your Biscuit sees the unlikely pairing of Steve Hansen with Zoë Bell of Tarantino fame. The campaign will culminate with the release of a short-film starring a raft of other renowned Kiwis, as well as a number of lucky Arnott’s biscuit eaters as literal ‘bit parts’ via a big in-store promotion.
Y&R Engage, in partnership with Arnott’s, developed the idea for the work from the insight ‘Kiwis take biscuits for granted’.
Arnotts NZ marketing director Nik Scotcher said: “We had this thought that biscuits are a small but important part of our life in New Zealand, and that they might be more conspicuous by their absence than their presence.
“We wanted to do something uniquely Kiwi, something irreverent and fun. It was every bit of that. Who wouldn’t want to make a movie with Steve Hansen about a biscuit apocalypse?”
Y&R Engage group business director Say Dorota Girdlestone said: “The communciation strategy for Arnott’s was baked into the campaign idea from its inception.
Handpicked
“Every single touchpoint has been handpicked with the specific role of maximising an earned effect, leveraging off the incredible influence our key talent has and made more potent by the absolute deviation in how NZ is used to seeing him.
“We had a lot of fun channelling Hollywood for this.”
Greville said: “Most importantly, engagement as opposed to a traditional-only approach, works.
“Apocalypse Steve Hansen – Don’t Lose Your Biscuit has had a massive earned effect into the millions of impacts and it’s only been a couple of weeks. On behalf of Arnott’s we’re very excited about the early results and very happy that their faith in us is paying off. Once again our engagement based approach is well and truly proving itself”
The film screens in NZ cinemas in November.
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