THE WORLD'S FIRST COMEDY SHOW ON WHATSAPP

TitleTHE WORLD'S FIRST COMEDY SHOW ON WHATSAPP
BrandTELEKOM DEUTSCHLAND GMBH
Product/ServiceMAGENTATV
Category B09. Use of Social Platforms
Entrant DDB BERLIN, GERMANY
Idea Creation DDB BERLIN, GERMANY
Media Placement EMETRIQ Hamburg, GERMANY
Media Placement 2 MINDSHARE Frankfurt, GERMANY
Production SOUP FILMPRODUKTION Berlin, GERMANY
Production 2 HASTINGS MUSIC Hamburg, GERMANY
Additional Company FACEBOOK GERMANY Hamburg, GERMANY
Additional Company 2 MESSENGERPEOPLE Hamburg, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Dennis May DDB Group Germany Chief Creative Officer
Fabian Roser DDB Group Germany Managing Director Creative
Karsten Ruddigkeit DDB Group Germany Executive Creative Director
Dennis Krumbe DDB Group Germany Creative Director Copy
Mark Räke DDB Group Germany Creative Director
Saskia Krug DDB Group Germany Senior Art Director
Dominique Winkel DDB Group Germany Art Director
Clara Sanchez-Alonso DDB Group Germany Art Director
Anna Rösch DDB Group Germany Senior Copywriter
Moritz Franke DDB Group Germany Senior Copywriter
Meike van Meegen DDB Group Germany Head of TV
Katrin Spiegel DDB Group Germany Executive Director Client Services
Juliane Weber DDB Group Germany Group Account Director
Arianna Giese DDB Group Germany Senior Account Manager
Sophie Prinz DDB Group Germany Account Manager
Finn Reddig DDB Group Germany Social Media Director
Philipp Machleidt DDB Group Germany Senior Strategist
Johann Buchholz Friday Film Dialog Author
Jens Koch / Photographer
Christian Ulmen Players Director & Actor
Fahri Yardim Players Actor

Why is this work relevant for Media?

To promote the innovative entertainment product MagentaTV by Deutsche Telekom, we developed a format that was as revolutionary as the product itself: The world's first comedy show playing exclusively on WhatsApp. Featuring two famous actors who have redefined comedy in Germany with their talent for improvisation. Instead of traditional advertising, we addressed the young audience with a format specifically designed for WhatsApp that organically included the brand Telekom, its products and perfectly matched the demands of the audience.

Background

MagentaTV is the latest TV-entertainment product by Deutsche Telekom, Germany's biggest telecom provider. It brings together the whole world of entertainment on an innovative interface and revolutionizes TV-watching in Germany. We tried to prove this with an entertainment format as revolutionary as MagentaTV.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

For our campaign we teamed up with two of Germany’s best-known actors: Fahri Yardim and Christian Ulmen. Thanks to their talent for improvisation, they particularly appealed to a young target audience. So we planned to engage this audience even more. As they primarily use smartphones and messaging services to stay in contact and consume content, we quickly decided on the fitting medium to use for our approach: WhatsApp. But since the platform does not allow conventional advertising, we developed a format focused on dialogue, which was no advertising in the traditional sense – the world's first interactive comedy show on WhatsApp. The basic idea: Christian and Fahri failed to read the small print in their advertising contract – and now they try everything to avoid the promo jobs they asked to do.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Our target group was between 18 and 44 years of age, at home in the digital world, particularly on social media. They are exceptionally passionate about watching TV series, which makes them the perfect target group for MagentaTV. However, they have a negative attitude towards conventional advertising. And they frequently use WhatsApp. A medium that does not allow conventional advertising.​ ​ So we developed a highly entertaining format tailor-made for MagentaTV and WhatsApp. An idea perfectly matching the talent of our testimonials, the target group, and the requirements of the platform.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

The first ever comedy show on WhatsApp opened a completely new communication channel for the brand: Entertainment created particularly for WhatsApp. We used all types of media supported by WhatsApp and created the illusion of a real chat: from texts, photos, audio-files to films. For nine days, the young target audience freely engaged in the dialogue and with the content. The underlying idea of the (unread) advertising contract allowed us to organically incorporate the brand Telekom, its products as well as parts of the advertising campaign into the communication.

List the results (30% of vote)

Over the whole duration of the campaign, a five figure number of people participated. On average, each of the participants wrote 4.2 messages. In total, users engaged with the content for more than 3.000 hours.​ ​ 90% of the feedback was positive and the interaction rate was four times higher than on Facebook. Many participants recommended the content to their friends and helped to spread the word – 15% of all registrations were a result of "word of mouth" recommendations.