Case study Woolworths: Cook like a MasterChef for MasterChef South Africa

One-line summary

A case study about Woolworths and Quirk using video advertising and marketing to generate brand awareness, increase customer engagement and create product associations between Woolworths and MasterChef.

The problem

Woolworths is a premium national retailer that stocks apparel, food and homeware. As a MasterChef South Africa sponsor, Woolworths wanted to maximise this association for brand benefit. Their goal was to increase brand awareness for Woolworths through customer engagement, and highlight associations between their products and MasterChef South Africa. To meet these goals, Woolworths partnered with Quirk, a marketing agency specialising in creative, results-orientated digital marketing.

The solution

Quirk leveraged MasterChef-themed video content to launch MasterChef South Africa at scale on various digital platforms. The videos showed gourmet cooking of various cuisines to inspire food enthusiasts. The video marketing strategy utilised the MasterChef brand to achieve its goals, which included:

• Producing great video content

• Effective targeting to drive traffic

• Engaging with users on platforms with video content

Producing great video content

The team made sure that their video content followed best-practice principles and provided lots of value to viewers in the form of great quality and entertainment. For example, they ensured that the first five seconds held the viewers attention and clearly stated the benefits of watching the full video. They uploaded videos according to a consistent schedule to maintain audience interest and set expectations. Video titles were crafted to incite users to click, and formed part of a larger playlist, ensuring the viewer always knew where to click next.

Effective targeting to drive traffic

To ensure the campaign was a success, the team used a series of channels to drive traffic to the videos. Google search and display advertising, Ads and Facebook advertising were used to drive paid traffic directly to the videos. Videos were also shared on the existing Woolworths blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Quirk negotiated with Google to allow Woolworths to use functionality that allowed users to click out to the Woolworths site) from within videos. Externally linking directly to the Woolworths website from in this way was a first in Africa.

During the video, annotations directed viewers to bespoke recipe pages on the Woolworths online store, or subtly encouraged them to subscribe and share the videos easily with their connections.

Engaging users directly

Engaging with users directly drives better engagement. Strategies to encourage this included asking viewers about their video experience and requesting suggestions for future improvements to be incorporated.

The results

The video marketing campaign achieved solid results and met all the intended goals. Throughout the process, the video content and campaigns were optimised with weekly insights, which were gathered from AdWords for video, Analytics and Google Analytics.

The aim was to get a view rate of at least 10% and a cost per view of under $0.20. The most costeffective engagement and awareness driver was AdWords for Video. Between 20 March and 31 July 2012, it generated:

• Over 18.2 million impressions

• Over 109 000 views

• 17 332 clicks

• A cost per view (CPV) of $0.16.

Overall, the video content was well utilised to meet the brand goals, maximised reach and engagement of the video assets on relevant cost-effective platforms. Finally, it met the overarching goal of facilitating brand association with MasterChef South Africa and Woolworths.

Summary

Video has become an integral part of the online world. The potential for exposure as well as interaction is massive, and brands that fail to capitalise on this risk being left behind as competitors build thriving communities.

As with most content, it is up to the brand to decide how to represent its video content. Videos can be hosted on popular video-sharing websites to capitalise on already existing audiences and developed interfaces, or on bespoke websites that allow for free reign in customisation.

Brands should then aim to optimise their videos on the chosen platforms to increase their visibility on search engines.

Creating a healthy community is also important in increasing exposure. Very rarely, if ever, does an audience come to video content without input from the creators. On top of optimising for search and other tweaks, brands should upload content regularly or risk losing any ground gained.

Social media should also be considered as its platforms allow for the sharing of content, as well as commentary.

Overall, brands should be aware that there is no quick fix for video. It requires planning and investment as well as long-term commitment to creating brand advocates.

Case study questions

1. When producing video content, what key points do you need to keep in mind?

2. Why is the way in which the video appears as part of the playlist important?

3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of different types of paid advertising?

The bigger picture

Video marketing can form the cornerstone of a great content marketing strategy, linking closely with the other content that you create to engage and provide value to your customers.

Videos can also be added to marketing messages such as email newsletters to improve engagement.

Because search engines serve a range of media types on their results pages, video content plays an important role in search engine optimisation. Not only can optimising videos for search increase your search engine ranking, but data show that it increases clickthrough rate from the search engine results pages, and that these visits are longer and more engaged than other search visits.

Social media provide a great tool for spreading your video, and video content can be a strong driver for people to join your social media platforms. Make sure that you provide great value.

Chapter questions

4. Why should commenting on videos be encouraged?

5. What sort of personalisation would self-hosting of a video allow?

6. How do you feel social media affects video marketing?

7. What possible obstacles could a brand face when seeding a viral video?