2016 Promo & Activation

RE:SHAKESPEARE

TitleRE:SHAKESPEARE
BrandSAMSUNG & THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
Product/ServiceRE:SHAKESPEARE
Category D02. Sponsorship & Partnerships
Entrant CHEIL UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation CHEIL UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production UNIT9 London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Malcolm Poynton Cheil Worldwide Global Chief Creative Officer
Tom Evans Cheil Worldwide Executive Creative Director
Mark Fretten Cheil Worldwide Creative Director
Rob Perham Cheil Worldwide Creative Director
Andy Day Cheil Worldwide Design Director
Oliver Wright Cheil Worldwide Executive Producer
Chris Chalk Cheil Worldwide Chief Strategy Officer
Laura Cortes Unit 9 London Creative Director, UX
Marc d Souza Unit 9 London Executive Producer
Pierre Trochu Unit 9 London Project Manager

The Campaign

We partnered Samsung with the Royal Shakespeare Company – one of Britain’s most reputable cultural institutions - to create RE:Shakespeare, a free android app, distributed as part of the RSC’s Education Outreach Programme. RE:Shakespeare helps students explore Shakespeare’s work through performance - standing up, speaking out loud – the way his plays were intended it to be experienced. As they work through a series of immersive 360° and interactive challenges, hosted by celebrity influencers and performance experts, they’re transformed from passive readers to active performers, discovering his stories, characters and language in exciting new ways. As they engage directly and physically with the words and rhythms of the text, Shakespeare’s complex thoughts and language start to make sense, inviting an instinctive and personal learning response.

Campaign Success

The RE:Shakespeare app helps children encounter Shakespeare in fun new ways, using active problem-solving methods and gamification – all via the language and technology we know they love. Developed to make full use of android features, the UX is designed around three primary modules – Play, Practice and Perform – each with its own unique interaction design, encouraging a certain type of learning response. Students work through challenges from celebrity influencers & RSC experts, experiencing a visual form of interactive storytelling that’s both quick and intuitive. PLAY introduces Shakespeare through games, hosted by actor David Tennant, rapper Akala and Shlomo the beatboxer. PRACTICE explores Shakespeare’s intent, guided by RSC experts and featuring a world-first 360° performance on the RSC stage. Finally PERFORM allows interactive on-screen performance, helping bring Shakespeare’s text to life for a new generation.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

At launch, the RE:Shakespeare app was distributed, via a bespoke RSC digital channel to RSC practitioners across the UK as part of the company’s education outreach programme. From here, it reached 1,200 schools, 2,000 teachers and over 530,000 young people creating word of mouth buzz. The activation created 68 pieces of targeted coverage with a total reach of 707,594,733 and a media value of £1,173,316. Highlights included 20 pieces of national coverage including The Times, The Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday. Online, cultural influencers from The Guardian to Fast Company praised its intent - culminating in a 3-minute spot in The Economist's “What The World Will Be Talking About In 2016”; One prominent Shakespeare blog described it as “…not just-a must-have but a “drop-whatever-it-is-that-you’re-doing-and-get-down-to-Google-Play-and-download-it-now” must have” It really is that good.” And whenever a student opens the RE:Shakespeare app, they experience Samsung technology and RSC performance expertise first-hand.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Samsung makes great tech but lacks social currency among a hard to reach but digitally-savvy 11-17 year old audience. The Royal Shakespeare Company needs to inspire and motivate young people, forced to study Shakespeare as part of the UK National Curriculum. Two challenges in two quite different organisations. But challenges the RE:Shakespeare app overcomes through a mutually-beneficial educational activation that puts Samsung tech right into target audience’s hands, bringing a subject alive they would otherwise be in danger of rejecting for life.

We knew that over 70% of young people aged 11-17 have access to a mobile device at home and that, in UK schools over 75% of primary and secondary classes now use them as learning tools. Research also revealed that they motivate disengaged pupils –especially boys and disadvantaged pupils who struggle with literacy. From our co-partners, the RSC, we further learned that young people respond best to Shakespeare when they experience kinaesthetic learning – learning through doing and feeling. We brought these insights together to create an immersive app that allowed students to experience Shakespeare through performance – and delivered that experience directly into their hands via a bespoke digital channel - the RSC’s Education outreach programme.