Consider it a mini-soap opera within a soap opera, except the latter isn’t just any soap opera–it’s the hugely popular youth series Hollyoaks on U.K.’s Channel 4. 02’s Load & Go debit card made a deal with Channel 4 to land major media time on Hollyoaks, thus tapping into that show’s highly coveted teen/youth demographic.
But having the ad time slots in place for a month’s worth of shows (Hollyoaks runs five days a week with omnibus reruns of the show’s episodes over the weekend) wasn’t enough. The client was looking for the right creative to make the most impact, perhaps something in the branded entertainment arena. 02 is a mobile telecommunications company which has ventured into other businesses, including the Load & Go debit card which enables consumers to control their discretionary spending by loading set amounts of funds onto the card. Teens and the youth market are prime targets as they and/or their parents can load these cards accordingly.
While 02’s mainstay agency is London’s VCCP, the client sought out additional avenues to find the creative answer to their Hollyoaks quandary. Channel 4 turned 02 onto The Outfit, an ad shop launched in March by creative stalwart Niall Murdoch and executive producer Charlie Read, two of the founding team members who brought Channel 4’s in-house agency/production hybrid 4 Creative into existence some nine years ago. Murdoch and Read are joint managing directors of The Outfit.
During their 4 Creative tenure, creative director Murdoch and head of production Read turned out assorted notable projects. Among Read’s efforts was the “Honda Live” spot which earned a Bronze Lion at this year’s Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. The long-form piece ran live in real time on U.K. television, showing a team of sky divers jumping out of a plane and forming in mid-air the letters H-O-N-D-A. The amazing bit of live primetime TV, which was filmed in Spain, actually had higher viewership than the program it sponsored that evening. The spot made a major splash, helping to propel the more conventional Honda campaign introducing its new Accord.
“In many respects, ‘Honda Live’ represents what we have set out to do at The Outfit,” said Read. “We want to make the ad break in the U.K. more engaging and entertaining with work that has talkability, that weaves its way into popular culture.”
In that vein and spirit, The Outfit came up with the idea of a scripted comedy/soap opera in which the two protagonists–a teenaged guy and gal–work in an offbeat, slightly other worldly Load & Go retail store as sales people/assistants. For each of the month’s 20 Hollyoaks episodes would be an original corresponding :30 Load & Go episode run as the first spot during the show’s center ad break. And during each weekend when all five of the week’s Hollyoaks episodes were rebroadcast in a cluster, viewers could again see each Load & Go :30, replete with character development of the mini-soap opera’s stars Matt and Sam. (Editor’s Note: For viewing one of the spots and credits information see link below or click here.)
At press time, the campaign was in its third week, with questions still to be answered as to exactly how Matt and Sam’s relationship will develop–romantically or otherwise. The Load & Go episodes can also be viewed on the popular Channel 4/Hollyoaks website, with the promise of unseen additional material to come. Though he was not yet at liberty to publicly discuss metrics, Read said that response to the broadcast and online fare has far exceeded expectations.
Character development
Read contended that part of the path to exceeding expectations includes not doing the expected. “We didn’t approach this as a series of 30-second commercials,” he related. “Instead we approached it like you would the development of a TV program–that’s more conducive to character and plot development.” Episodes were written in collaboration with Hollyoaks program producer Lime Pictures to discreetly tie the show and the spot storylines together and create a measure of continuity between them. Comedy writer Sarah Solemani was also brought into the project. And The Outfit selected director Gordon Anderson for the 20 :30s. Anderson has primetime series chops, having directed The Catherine Tate Show and the BAFTA-winning comedy The Inbetweeners.
The series of :30s was produced by Academy Content, the branded content division of longstanding commercial production house Academy Films, London. Anderson was brought into direct via Academy Content which is under the aegis of head of content James Cunningham.
The production schedule was much faster than the commercialmaking norm. Read said that all 20 :30s were shot during the course of two days, a pace more akin to TV series production. Read added that he had a comfort level with Academy going in, noting that he freelanced as a production manager earlier in his career at Academy Films.
Creative mantra Read and Murdoch exited 4 Creative in December 2008, and spent the ensuing months prepping for The Outfit’s emergence in March. Read said the mantra for The Outfit is to get clients to think differently, to foster collaboration and to bring in different types of people and experiences into the advertising process like was done for the Load & Go mini-soap opera series.
“We’re not working against other ad agencies,” he related. “We fit into the communications niche, particularly in the arena of branded entertainment, engagement solutions or branded content–whatever the preferred terminology is nowadays in the U.K. for this kind of work. We don’t see this element as replacing more conventional advertising but rather as shining a light and enhancing the mix of work that goes into an advertising/marketing campaign. ‘Honda Live’ for example was a PR project that got a lot of press, shining a light on the mainstream advertising which helped to build the brand and launch that year’s Accord.”
Currently The Outfit is embarking on three web programs for an undisclosed client. As for clients of the agency that can be discussed, The Outfit has turned out projects for European telecommunications company Orange, sponsorship campaigns for Mazda, and an initiative for publisher Pan Macmillan helping to introduce the book Race To The Pole.
Thus far, all these Outfit endeavors have been on a per-project basis. “We’re looking to get business on retainer but there’s something to be said for a project-based business,” observed Read. “You have a bit of independence this way. When you have a client on retainer, it can sometimes be a bit harder to look them in the eye and tell them they have to think differently. We have been able to get clients to think and do things differently on the projects we’ve tackled so far–and that’s been to our benefit and ultimately theirs.”
