Fresh from presenting our most effective, exciting and innovative work to a panel of Media Week judges, OMD UK is now looking ahead to how it can work with media owners to continue this strong showing in the future.
Global’s Media and Entertainment Week, which is currently running at our headquarters in Soho, allows us to focus on the opportunities ahead. They are sharing their most cutting-edge media propositions and consumer insights in the hope that we can collaborate to produce fantastic work and impact on our audience in a manner which will gain both media owner and advertiser a greater share of people’s lives.
Global has re-oriented their approach towards a more holistic media experience with an emphasis on their digital and social footprint. The foundation is built around not merely presenting media content but offering editorial, curatorial, and creative content. Aiming to generate content that is unique, relatable, or emotional to their audience (and ideally all three), Global have placed at the heart of their offer a social strategy which has already demonstrated impressive results.
These results, which illuminate the new approach, were outlined in the first session of the week: ‘Content Worth Sharing’. The examples ranged from the incredible organic reach of Classic FM’s thematic quizzes such as ‘How Well Can You Read Music’ or competitive mash-up promoting Disney’s Into the Woods with each example demonstrating a precise knowledge of their audience’s relatable and emotional attachment to music and composers. Another instance of editorial driven promotion was the collaboration of Netflix and Capital FM around Hallowe’en, reaching over 200,000 individuals on Facebook. Other examples demonstrated the self-promotional power of Global’s multimedia approach, such as unexpectedly massive uplift around the rebranded Radio X (formerly XFM) which ‘broke the internet’ (ie. their app and digital browser) under the sudden weight of demand.
The most interesting study revealed was that of PopBuzz – a multimedia digital proposition which is being brought to market for the first time. Its editorial staff were chosen for their youth (none above the age of 24) and target the increasingly difficult to reach younger Millennials or Generation Z. PopBuzz was built around a set of insights into youth culture: YouTubers are their new celebrities; they use new(er) social media channels (Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr) alongside Twitter, Whatsapp and Facebook; and, most importantly, they communicate in content to even a greater extent than older generations (such as tagging one another in Facebook posts).
PopBuzz’s own content caters to this obsession with sharing, creating viral puff pieces but mixing in serious editorial work, do not make the mistake of thinking this is purely a group of shallow youths. The response has been electric: the average share of a PopBuzz article is 70% higher than their nearest competitor (Capital). With a number of rising YouTubers on their roster already, PopBuzz aims to weave itself into the lives of its consumers and is inviting brands to join them.
This ambition from Global to share in a significant portion of their consumer’s lives complements neatly OMD UK’s own strategy to be Culturally Connected. Weeks such as this will best demonstrate how we can work alongside advertisers and media owners not just to push messages but to make our content a desirable and, most importantly, sharable part of people’s lives.
