One of Skinny’s Friend-Vertising Ads Might Feature Someone You Know

Skinny may not have the biggest advertising budgets, a legacy of innovation, or the heft of its beloved competitors in the telco market. But what it does have is an army of customers who love them. So much so, that Skinny has won Consumer NZ’s People’s Choice Award in the mobile category 5 years in a row. These are lovely, happy customers who would gladly recommend Skinny to their friends and/or family.

Which is where Friend-vertising comes in. Considering that word of mouth is 83% more effective than advertising, and that it seems like everyone in New Zealand knows someone who knows someone, Skinny’s new Friend-vertising campaign via Colenso BBDO aims to reach everyone in New Zealand with an ad for Skinny fronted by a person they know.

A highly targeted direct campaign that operates at a national broadcast level.

Friend get nation, if you will.

To do this, the campaign stars literally heaps of happy Skinny customers, each fronting their own highly produced audio-visual commercial, imploring their friends and family to join them on Skinny.

In each, a happy customer stands alone in a two-person, friendship scenario – like riding a see saw, water skiing, or playing chess – and talks about how Skinny’s mobile network covers 98% of places Kiwis work and live. How Skinny are a Kiwi brand, run by Kiwis for Kiwis. That they have hundreds of thousands of the nation’s happiest mobile customers. And how they’ll do anything to save their customers money.

Hindi, Cantonese, Samoan, and Sign Language versions of the ad are running in prime-time TV slots without subtitles.

Out of home placements feature recognisable faces from the community and are geo-located to reach those who are most likely to recognise them.

In social media, those who missed out on starring in the TV and out of home executions can generate their own online ads, targeted to their friends and family.

The campaign launches this week with the broadcast of 46 unique TV ads, each one featuring completely different talent.

15 unique TV executions ran on the first night alone.

A first for NZ.

Says Natasha Gill, TV producer at Colenso BBDO: “This was the most complex campaign to ever blow through our building. Our tiny brains would melt every time we did the math on fitting so many people into a normal production timeline. But it was definitely worth it. Probably?”

Says Rachel Leyland of PhD Media: “This has been the most ridiculously hectic, but amazing campaign to work on. It’s personalization on mass, effectively turning out talent into our channels, with our job being to get maximum reach and LOLs with the people they know.”

Says Ally Young, brand lead for Skinny: “In a new world of social isolation and working from home, connection to our friends and family are more important than ever. This new campaign feeds directly into that insight – and is a playful take on the importance of social connection.”

The campaign went live on March 22nd. Keep an eye out for someone you know.