Client:
Leica Camera
“Danny MacAskill Plays Capetown” Interactive Video Series
May 2011
Objective:
- Build anticipation around the V-Lux 30 camera launch
- Raise awareness of the brand to a new audience
- Use an internet celebrity that has a large and dedicated community
Solution:
An Interactive Video Series featuring Danny MacAskill
Key Lessons:
The launch was a success for two reasons:
1. It engaged and enticed viewers with an interactive video series that built anticipation for the new product launch.
2. It leveraged the strong online following of an Internet celebrity and therefore exposed the Leica brand to a new audience, increasing the brand exposure and reach outside of its core community.
Company Background
Leica Camera is a luxury brand used by prestigious photographers around the world. In 1925, Oskar Barnack developed a small format 35 mm camera that would revolutionize photography. His passion for photography and struggle with asthma led him to create the lightweight Leica camera. Since then, Leica has developed innovative instruments that afford a unique seeing experience, and has had a profound influence on our view of the world we live in.
Objective
Leica wanted to build anticipation around the launch of their new V-Lux 30 camera. The camera makes saving and sharing simple for those who love to explore the world. Leica Camera not only wanted to illustrate this but also wanted to use an Internet celebrity who had a large and dedicated community to raise awareness of the brand to a new audience.
The brand chose Danny MacAskill to be the face of the interactive campaign. Danny is professional street trial bicyclist for Inspired Bicycles Ltd. His Internet fame came by chance, when his flat mate posted a video of him doing stunts on YouTube. His videos that followed were extremely popular, attracting hundreds of thousands of views within a couple of days on the site.
The Scottish extreme sportsman would serve as the bridge to connect Leica Camera with a new community of adventurers plugged in to the digital world. Leica Camera came to Sociality Squared to determine how to best leverage an upcoming video shoot of the extreme athlete in Cape Town, South Africa, and how to leverage Danny MacAskill’s online community in a cohesive, cross-platform social media campaign.
Approach
The solution was an interactive video series “Danny MacAskill Plays Capetown”. Over 10 days leading up to the V-Lux 30 camera launch, three short video clips of Danny MacAskill riding and doing stunts through Cape Town were released. At the end of each video there was a cliffhanger and viewers were asked to vote on Danny’s next move. Questions included: “Where should he go next?” “How should he jump the containers?” and “How should he jump the empty pool?” The videos were uploaded on Vimeo and officially released with the voting mechanism on The Leica Camera Blog. As an incentive to vote, one participate for each voting period won the new V-Lux 30 Camera. The series was also promoted to Leica Camera’s communities on Facebook and Twitter. Fans enjoyed seeing Cape Town through the eyes of a street trials pro rider and voting on Danny’s next move for a chance to win the new mystery Leica Camera. At the conclusion of the video series, the V-Lux 30 was announced, and three lucky participants won new Leica product. The clips that the fans voted on were incorporated into the complete video, which Leica used as their official commercial for the product.
Results
- Leica Camera was successful in meeting its objectives of building anticipation around the V-Lux 30 camera launch, raising awareness of the brand to a new audience, and using an internet celebrity that has a large and dedicated community
- The corporate website traffic increased 14% compared to the previous month, peaking at 435,000 single unique visitors to the site.
- Blog traffic increased by 24% compared to April .
- The four Danny MacAskill video entries attracted over 38,000 views.
- The video blog posts were shared on Facebook more than 2,400 times.
- 4,718 people voted on Danny’s next move.
- The Danny MacAskill video is Leica Camera’s most popular video on YouTube, with nearly 370,000 views as of September 2011.
- The final video was selected as a “Video we like” by Vimeo and featured on the Vimeo homepage.
- The final video was also listed on the favorites, entertainment favorites and list as number 19 on the best noted YouTube videos on May 30.