Sony Pictures Entertainment's Spectre was the latest installment of the James Bond movie franchise. In keeping with Bond's take-no-prisoners attitude, Sony wanted to create a first-of-its kind digital event to build buzz around the 2016 worldwide release of Spectre. To that end, Sony tapped Something Massive to create Snapchat's first ever 24 hour pop-up "Discover" channel for 007.
Something Massive worked with Snapchat to establish the format for a pop-up channel, and to lock Spectreinto prime positioning in the "Discover" section for a full 24-hours, ensuring worldwide exposure to this exclusive digital event. What followed was a rolling 24 hours of prime Bond coverage across the globe, strategically scheduled for a week before the film's release. Each segment pushed boundaries and broke new ground for branded content in this emerging, engaging and frankly addictive platform.
The Mission
The goal of this groundbreaking promotional event was to pull Snapchat users in at multiple points of entry, increasing interest in and driving ticket sales of Spectre over the course of a rolling 24-hour, Snapchat-centric media blitz.
The Challenge
Since Snapchat was created with a short attention span in mind, the main challenge (in addition to doing something that had never been done before) was maintaining rapt interest throughout the Discover takeover experience. To address this, each snap was made both interactive and exclusive to the takeover. Within each snap section, users could share the top snap and/or scroll to the bottom snap for exclusive video content, bonus trivia and facts.
The Ride
Over the course of the full 24-hour takeover, users were taken on a wild ride straight into the world of Bond. Snappers could access the pop-up channel in two ways: through the number one position in the Discover line-up or through native video ads that led users directly into the channel. Once in, access to exclusive content included behind-the-scenes featurettes, cast messages, on-location photos, Sam Smith's music video and secret sneak peeks of car chases and action scenes. In the words of Sony's Theatrical Marketing President Dwight Caines, "For one day only, Snapchat will be the one-stop shop for Spectre content, including photos and behind-the-scenes looks at the making of this incredible movie."
At the end of the full Bond snap-story, viewers were prompted to create a snap inviting friends to seeSpectre with them, creating a sharable asset that led to a concerted drive to ticket sales.
The Extra Mile
In addition to the full 24 hours of Spectre content, Something Massive also created Spectre geofilters, allowing users around the world to use Spectre art exclusive to Snapchat on their snaps throughout the day of the film's release. This surprise second leg of the content blitz served to both capitalize on interest raised in the initial takeover and create timely new engagement with users on Snapchat the day the movie actually came out.
The Bull's-Eye
Up until this takeover, branded content on Snapchat had been confined to publishers' stories, mainly in the form of interstitial advertisements. It was impossible to draw users into a world, especially for a prolonged period of time.James Bond's Snapchat takeover became the FIRST branded channel on the platform, paving the way for a new world order in the untamed universe of branded content.It was a win for digital advertising, and a ride bespoke enough for James Bond.
With over 40,000,000 Tab Impressions, it's safe to say people were intrigued by the chance to learn more about our favorite Man of Mystery.
Here are some other 007-like numbers:
• 40 million + Edition Snap Views (3 TIMES the existing channel average)
• 175K Shares
• 50 major news organizations covered the pop-up event
Fun Fact
The most shared snap was the "Shaken or Stirred" snap, which allowed users to cast and share their martini-sipping vote. How do you take your martini? We take ours shaken, of course, like the records we're proud to have broken in giving the world a red carpet intro to this incredible film event.
