It seems like it’s hard to go wrong with anything Justin Bieber-related, but The Branding Farm really took it to the next level with the “Never Say Never” DVD release campaign. NSN Weekend was all about getting psyched to watch the DVD together with your friends. The campaign saw more than 36,000 RSVPs to the global event, over 7,000 individual viewing parties created through Facebook Events, 22,000 shares and 242 million social impressions. To top it off, the campaign achieved a 10 percent conversion rate on clicks to buy. Hill Salomon, The Branding Farm’s founder and Creative Director, talks about how they made Bieber even bigger. 

It started with the recognition that the most important thing for us to deliver was a real world experience. We came to that realization by listening; we looked at the Bieber Facebook page and what was going on there, and across other social media following the buzz surrounding the release of the film. We wanted to find something that the fans were passionate about, and that we could make more engaging and valuable for them than standard DVD promotion. What we found was that fans were excited about getting together and having viewing parties. So we focused on creating a highly social, real-world event centered on the connections they share with their friends, and the fun that they’re going to have when they watch the DVD together.

Selling physical DVDs to digitally-oriented tweens isn’t the easiest task. We felt like we could best address the challenge by focusing on the real world event and amplifying the experience of watching the film with friends.

Once we knew we were going to focus the campaign on viewing parties, the next question was how. We knew that planning the viewing party and related activities were going to play a big part in the event. We saw fans talking about what they were going to eat, what they were going to wear and what games they were going to play. So we came up with ideas for cool activities that fans could do together to plan for the event itself, like making purple “Bieber-berry” cupcakes before the party. We offered a new piece of content each day for seven days leading up to the release, which resulted in return visits and increased awareness. 

For one, Facebook offers access to a huge portion of Justin Bieber’s audience. But what we particularly liked in this case was the ability to create events. When we honed in on the idea of NSN Weekend, we wanted to create something that had wide reach and accessibility. We created a Facebook event as a base for the NSN weekend concept and enabled people to RSVP with one-click. It also meant we could have a nice bridge between Justin’s existing presence on Facebook, where at the time he had about 24 million fans, and the NSN Weekend microsite. A landing tab on Justin’s Facebook page linked to the microsite. We used the events API to manage RSVPs to the global viewing event and also allowed users to create their own personal event and invite friends via Facebook. Through the platform, we were able to create a nice interplay between Justin’s page and the NSN weekend event.

It was of real strategic importance that we offer multiple ways for fans to engage with the campaign. We attempt to do that with all of our campaigns; we never assume it’s a one-size-fits-all for every fan. More dedicated fans may want to host their own viewing parties while others might just RSVP to the global viewing party and then sign-up for reminders of when the DVD drops. 

Obviously DVD sales were the primary goal and the CTR on the purchase button was the highest we’ve ever seen; that was a clear indicator of success. While that’s an extremely important figure and we’re really excited about it, we also try to look at a wide range of data to provide a comprehensive overview of what happened over the course of the campaign. Not only how many people RSVP’d and created their own viewing parties, but also how many people shared the content and then the way that content travelled. We use a combination of analytical tools, including Facebook Insights, to help capture and represent the ultimate visibility of the campaign as it spread through friends. We try to look at it as a four-step process: connections, activity, social impressions and then re-integration or response. Something like click to buy is one metric within one of those categories.

We recognized what the fans were looking for and provided something of tangible value in response. This was important to Justin Bieber and his team, too, so that became one of the central strategic imperatives. Overall, we tried to make the campaign meaningful. While it might sound a bit lofty to say, the reason that 800 million people are on Facebook everyday is because it adds meaning to their lives. A meaningful experience might come in the form of entertainment, or utility but if it can be authentic and provide some kind of valuable engagement, that’s where we like to start. 

Hill Salomon is founder and Creative Director of The Branding Farm.