[CASE STUDY] #Ads24Diski is an engaging, multi-platform campaign put together to better understand Ads24’s mass market reader community using soccer as common ground. They recently held activations in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The diski market
Getting media agencies excited about publications such as Die Son, Soccer Laduma, Kick Off and Daily Sun is the goal behind the popular #Ads24Diski18. Activations held at media agencies across Johannesburg and Cape Town recently.
Marise van der Lith, brand manager for Ads24, broke down the intention behind the events for us. “#Ads24Diski18 is Ads24’s second trade marketing campaign of its kind, aimed at national advertising/media agencies. The trade campaign’s objective is to promote Media24’s national mass market titles, represented by Ads24 to our clients, who can gain from these markets through advertising,” she says.
The campaign’s significance
Ads24 is always looking for ways to engage with their advertisers in a meaningful way. According to Van der Lith, “our objective is always to create awareness around the news brands and to effectively communicate the value of our multi-platform offerings.
“The beauty and effective message behind the #Ads24Diski18 Campaign lies in the fact that the campaign takes our clients on a journey.
“From engaging with us through the activation [diski tournaments, entertainment and football themed foods] to our print message in the form of an interactive soccer desk drop, [containing insights behind the titles], which ultimately leads participants online to a bespoke branded soccer game, where the insights are shared again and you are prompted to share your score on social media”.
The campaign is a combination of good public relations, use of social media, a physical desk drop, great food and fun engagement. This ultimately leads to true brand engagement.
Judging by the enthusiastic response at all the agencies, staff were definitely kept entertained. Participants were given team football shirts in red or blue to demarcate the sides and the competition was presided over by comedian Mpho ‘Popps”’Modikoane, who kept engagement and spirits high with his humorous banter.
In addition, participants were given an interactive printed desk drop featuring a game, insights and a special offer of three multimedia deals as well as a call to action to join the online soccer game, share their scores and stand a chance to win great prizes.
Multi-platform driven
A multi-platform, integrated campaign such as #Ads24Diski18 is powerful in terms of driving brand awareness. It is also a great way of getting a large number of people to engage with your brand. The Ads24 team use the concept of an online game to create a buzz and keep people excited.
“Because multi-platform solutions are at the heart of what we sell, we thought it fit to illustrate this through adding an online engagement element through gamification. This got our clients to engage with our insights and brand,” says Van der Lith.
To date, 1 732 games have been played played, and 14 775 goals scored with an average game time of 1 min 49. The total combined time is over 49 hours. “This translates to power in terms of brand awareness. In an industry as competitive as ours, getting a client’s time has huge value,” Van der Lith says.
While it might sound like fun and games, this activation had a serious goal of ROI. It needed to generate sales.
Although Van der Lith was pleased with the overall success of the event, she was more concerned about whether people were excited about it; indeed they were. “Our message was presented in a way that transcended beyond a 90 slide presentation and we had fun doing it,” she says.
Flavours of the world
In celebration of the Fifa World Cup, #Ads24Diski18, Ads24 even themed the activations food according to the nations that participated in the world tournament.
“We chose a campaign with a strong soccer theme because as we all know, sport is a uniting universal factor. Two of our titles (Soccer Laduma and Kick-Off) are of course strongly editorially aligned to soccer, but the common love, throughout our mass market titles is the ‘People’s Game’,” Van der Lith explains.
“With soccer fever rife over July, we saw fit to align our message accordingly. We offered food aligned with countries who are fan favourites during World Cup season and simply, because it was delicious, hearty and warm during winter.”
Reabetswe Rabaji is a journalism intern working at Wag the Dog. He is currently studying PR and Communication Management at the University of Johannesburg.
