An SCA campaign over a year in the making

Over the last couple of days you may have come across a very clever and powerful campaign being shared around social media.

Roadtrip Forever was developed by Southern Cross Austereo for their client the Transport Accident Commission (TAC).

I had a chat with Angus Stevens, Creative Director Vision Sales at SCA, to find out more about it….

Mark: How did the campaign come about ?

Angus: TAC were looking for new ways to reach young adults – particularly with research showing that traditional forms of media within this demographic was declining in relevance. We saw a huge opportunity to reach this core group by integrating their personal data into the narrative of the film, to maximise the impact of
the key message.

Mark: How long did it take to develop ?

Angus: From initial pitch of the concept to launch day it was around 12 to 14 months in the making. Once TAC agreed to the idea and gave us the go ahead it took 8 months to produce the finished campaign.

Mark: What was involved in the making ?

Angus: Core to the narrative was TAC’s in depth research. Through that we learnt what young men and women feared most as drivers, and what was the most likely scenarios that would have in impact. So we sat down and wrote two films that realistically portrayed that experience – all the while being mindful of the fact we wanted to bed the Facebook integration into the story, ensuring so the integration points were relevant to the context of the story and served to provide a unique ability to personalise it.

Once the scripting was locked down we had three arms of production working in parallel. Our video production unit, our post house production unit The Gingerbread Man (who built an app specifically for the mobile phone integration), and our development team Run Pixel Run, who built out the Facebook integration.

After shooting, the post production process had an extra layer involved as we had to repeatedly bounce the final results through Facebook to ensure the integration and video content all hummed along, was seamlessly integrated into the video content and executed the story in the manner we liked.

And then finally the SCA team executed the design and implementation of the site.

Mark: Is this type of Facebook integration a world first ?

Angus: This is the very first time Facebook data has been pulled into the narrative of a video in a manner in which the data pulled from Facebook has been driving the core narrative arc of the story and placing the user into the story – so it is a world first in that respect. It is certainly the first time in Australia this type of Facebook integrated campaign has been done.

We’re starting to see more and more creative agencies harnessing Facebook data to integrate into campaigns, and we’re really excited to be leading the way from a film perspective.

Mark: How is it being supported on-air / online ?

Angus: We know that social users love discovering new and innovative content, so Roadtrip Forever was launched purely via social networks.

While we gave influencers, fans and SCA’s on-air talent a preview of the campaign, there was no obligation for them to then share it with their networks – we left it purely in the hands of the individuals to decide if and how they would spread the word.

You’ll notice the hashtag #roadtripforever gaining momentum via Twitter – and that’s all due to the power of the content itself.

Later down the track we have plans for some on-air and online activity.

Mark: Congrats to all the SCA staff (listed below).

Experience the end product of a lot of blood, sweat and tears by clicking the logo below….

The behind the scenes footage can be seen here