EXTREME REPS

TitleEXTREME REPS
BrandEPSON
Product/ServiceECOTANK PRINTER
Category A04. Consumer Durables
Entrant WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production AGILE FILMS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
James Nester Weber Shandwick Executive Creative Director
Luke Walker Weber Shandwick Creative Director
Zac Ella Agile Films Director
Emma Bewley Agile Films Producer
Sam Pickles Weber Shandwick Studio Producer
Joe Walton Weber Shandwick Client Lead

Background

The Epson EcoTank printer is an innovative printer that has done away with fiddly, uneconomic ink cartridges in favour of a refillable tank and bottled ink solution. Because of this product innovation consumers can enjoy three years of printing without having to refill. Straight out the box. The brief was simple. Raise awareness of the EcoTank printer by telling potential consumers about this innovative offering. The EcoTank printer. Three years, no refills. The objective was to go beyond awareness and drive potential consumers towards purchase by gaining over 1 million views of the campaign content that resulted in purchase consideration.

Describe the strategy

We’d aim our campaign at those who's find the 'three years, no refills' proposition most enticing. We identified these as young adults around university age. Most university courses are three years long, so a printer that needn't be refilled with ink for the duration of a course would be a no-brainer for students in our target markets of Spain, Germany and the UK. This young audience predominantly consume a mix of humour and lifestyle based content - from funny prank videos to work-out videos. And they mainly watch this content on Facebook. They definitely don't tend to watch content about printers - a grudge purchase. So we needed to capture their attention with content that tapped these passions, while also demonstrating the EcoTank printer. And because Facebook's new algorithm had just been changed to reward content that generates conversation, we needed to do it a way that gets everyone talking.

Describe the execution

This printer embodies extreme endurance. Not unlike many of the the sports and training celebs online, who are watched by our audience in the millions. So we'd put an EcoTank twist to the exercise video. Starring someone with huge zeitgeist appeal, who's also famous for endurance. We created Extreme Reps, with Lewis Hamilton. A series of exercise routines that used a blend of smart direction, rotoscoping techniques and clever choreography to create the illusion that Lewis was completing an incredible rep count of difficult exercises. He just kept going, like the printer. In the 30 minute piece Lewis completed an unbelievable 604 elevated press-ups, 337 weighted pull-ups and 267 weighted pull-ups. Non-stop. This wasn't just endurance. It was unbelievable EcoTank endurance. For a week, the content was pushed out to our target audience on Facebook and hosted on Epson’s brand page across our markets of Spain, Germany and the UK.

List the results

Extreme Reps received incredible levels of engagement, smashing the set objective of 1 million views, closing out the week with 2 million. An amazing 50 thousand people watched the entire 30 minute film, bucking the trend for content of that length. The campaign was conceived to create conversation and thanks to all the directorial trickery it did just that. Playing perfectly into the hands of Facebooks algorithm that bumped the campaign figures with every like, share and comment. Fans even took the conversation off Facebook, setting up Reddit chats to break down the techniques used and figure it all out. Overall, Extreme Reps received: - 2 million views - 6.8k shares - 1.6k comments - 50k click-throughs to Epson site Resulting in £500k of potential sales leads. All thinks to an F1 champ and a unique and engaging way of bringing the USP of a printer to life.