Born during the Great Depression, RITZ was originally conceived as a taste of the good life, focusing on the family moments and togetherness that make us all rich with experiences. As a time-honored brand rooted in American culture, the objective of RITZ is to once again message the value of experiences over material possessions.
In 2015, VaynerMedia was tasked with sharing the RITZ brand's values with a mass audience and building appreciation around its definition of the term "rich," which is synonymous with family moments and experiences. Our objective was to drive awareness of RITZ amongst women ages 25-54 years old during the holiday season, so we partnered with Facebook to be one of the first brands to promote a 360 degree narrative video on the social media platform.
Being one of the first brands to participate in Facebook's 360 video beta ad product enabled us to reach mass awareness on the platform and drive equity for the RITZ brand. This was due to the increased importance Facebook was placing on video in its News Feed, innovative nature of 360 video on the platform, and resulting earned media based on the partnership and story. As the newest innovation in digital video--a white-hot space in its own right--we saw 360 video as a unique opportunity to connect with our audience in a relevant and timely way.
Every family has that one member (in many cases "Dad") who constantly remains behind the camera, missing out on what matters most during the holidays: spending quality time with family and friends. As the cameraman, Dad often finds himself on the outside looking in at finished photo albums and home movies. Since peering back through these items is how we often remember rich family memories, VaynerMedia made that the central idea of the RITZ 360 video.
We started with the insight of a family member occasionally missing out, and brought it to life through an immersive 360 video scene, from Dad's perspective. We developed an emotional narrative of one family's holiday party as it recurred over three decades. The narrative took the viewer through 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2015, showing how the family had grown from parents, siblings and grandparents into husbands, wives, aunts, uncles and young children - even a family dog. The RITZ 360 holiday video offered a unique viewing experience through which to see how family relationships grow.
Using 360 technology to tell this story was a natural choice, given how it allows the audience to get a full, immersive experience of each scene versus the straight-on view traditional video provides. It enabled us to highlight the many important moments that are missed beyond a traditional camera frame. It's the implementation of 360 video that allows Dad, and the audience, to finally step out from behind the camera and participate in all of the moments they've missed out on.
Digital video consumption in general has skyrocketed in the past 18 months, particularly on Facebook. The news of Facebook adopting 360 video made an immediate splash in the social media landscape, and it gave us an opportunity to position RITZ as a first-mover. Leveraging an emerging medium in this way helped us keep RITZ extremely relevant and reach as many potential consumers in the form of 25-54 year old women as possible, which drove our decision to participate in Facebook's beta partnership.
VaynerMedia's goal was to drive equity and awareness for RITZ during the holiday season, and that's exactly what we were able to achieve through our 360 narrative video. The end results included 2.8 million video views and 37.8 million impressions.
We were successful in telling a meaningful narrative to an appropriate audience, using an innovative technology. The resulting impressions and earned media in outlets such as AdAge, Engadget, TechCrunch, and Variety were indicative of us hitting our mark with our messaging, and successfully leveraging an emerging medium in 360 video on the world's largest social media platform.
