Since the start of the Foster's "good call" campaign, Brad and Dan, the Australian agony uncles, have handed out their own kind of advice to UK callers. By the end of 2011, they had handled a variety of dilemmas and featured in five "good call" spots and the launch of Foster's Gold with Holly Valance. With a new year came a renewed challenge to create the next set of work, making it feel fresh while delivering the same no-worries attitude wrapped up in Australian sun, sea and surf.
The Brief
Foster's wanted to maintain the momentum of the campaign, so when we were briefed to write the 2012 TV creative, we were asked to give our audience something new and surprising. In the first quarter, we launched "hairy back" and the new Foster's Gold spot with Brad attending a party in the UK, before sending "Lucy" live at the start of May. But we felt that, with the campaign now established, we had a big opportunity to bring something different that our audience would be eager to get involved with.
The Creative Idea
Time after time in research groups, the Foster's audience voiced their desire for Brad and Dan to give one of their mates a "good call". Coupled with a 2011 Facebook petition for a real-world "good call" help-line, we knew we had the wind behind us to make the campaign a more social experience.
We created the Good Call Centre, a place for our audience to design a personalised video response from Brad and Dan to their mates' dilemmas. They also get to meet our Good Call Centre girls, who are only too willing to help them get their videos sorted and help a friend out.
We wanted to make the campaign an interactive experience that built on the above-the-line work, while matching it for tone of voice, production quality, look and feel. It needed to fit seamlessly into the "good call" world, extending the campaign into a genuinely social environment and facilitating great banter between friends, while giving them high-quality, personal interactions with the "good call" campaign.
The Logistics
On arriving at the Good Call Centre, the user is greeted by five Aussie girls ready to handle their call and get the relevant information on their mate so Brad and Dan can help him out.
The user selects a girl from the "dilemma switchboard", then selects the relevant dilemma that their mate is facing: self-image, girls, personality or general ignorance. The user is then prompted to type in their mate's name.
A video response from Brad and Dan, using the mate's name and picking up on their issue, is then generated and can be posted directly to the friend's Facebook wall or shared via a URL.
Built as one continuous film, the interaction with our "good call" girls and delivery of the response from Brad and Dan is entertaining and rewarding, and delivers an excellent digital experience totally in keeping with the quality, tone, look and feel of the Foster's brand equity built up over the past two years.
The campaign went live on 9 May with support from two different video-on-demand pre-rolls, featuring Brad and Dan and the Good Call Centre girls, driving directly to the Good Call Centre. It also saw a PR day delivered by Frank PR that brought a real version of the Good Call Centre to central London to help the media and general public get involved with the campaign.
Ben Priest is the creative founding partner at Adam & Eve
Credits
Client: Nic Casby, Foster's brand manager, Heineken UK
Creative agency: Adam & Eve
Creative team: Aidan McClure, Laurent Simon
Producers: Stefanie Warreyn, Jai Tedeschi
Media agency: Starcom MediaVest Group
Production company: Unit9
Directors: Barnaby Girling, Robert Bader