Page 40 - AdNews Magazine Jul-Aug 2020

Feature
headphones to block out wind so that the person talking could be heard crystal clear.
“It was probably the most col- laborative campaign I have worked on in a long time,” Brock says.
Between Tourism Australia and the agencies, daily conversa- tions were had to make sure it all came together perfectly. Brock says it meant that all the agencies had to work with their silos down.
“Applying things like agile methodology to multiple agency collaborations is a tough thing to try to figure out,” he says.
“We did it here because it was a necessity but I’m sure we’re going to continue doing that because it’s a really effective way of working.”
Much like Tourism Australia and its agencies, subscription meal delivery service HelloFresh and Emotive had to direct talent from afar.
Following the success of its Skewered content series with comedian Celeste Barber, HelloFresh wanted to create a sim- ilar localised series for New Zealand. Kiwi YouTube star Jordan Watson, also known as How to Dad, was enlisted for it.
Clare says the Emotive and HelloFresh teams were ready to fly over to shoot the series when the travel restrictions hit.
“We were very fortunate that Jordan himself is a content crea- tor,” Clare says. “He does have that capability to film himself but we had to rewrite the script accord- ingly to reference and acknowl- edge [the new restrictions].
“That was a challenge in itself because when you’re creating content films or a cooking show segment that is six minutes long that features not only Jordan but a celebrity guest, the scripts are pretty long. They’re a lot more involved and there’s a hell of a lot more components than your tra- ditional 30-second script.”
Despite the problems provided by the physical distance, Clare says the team pulled it off.
Talent trends
Sourcing and directing talent who aren’t seasoned content creators was a challenge. Clare notes that
“As things have started to open
up, one of the biggest challenges has been finding innovative ways
to adhere to the safety restrictions.”
Genero CEO Mick Entwistle.
for one client, the talent they need sits within the 85 to 90 age range - most of whom are unlikely to be tech savvy enough to jump on a video call or be on the books of casting agents.
At Genero, Entwistle says they worked with talent who may be related or from the same house. For a number of brands like Airtasker, using their own people has been a solution.
Airtasker brand lead Sarah May says the online marketplace which allows people to outsource tasks wasn’t initially planning a campaign but after a few conversations with various “taskers”, the company wanted to spread a positive message.
Shot and directed entirely through video calls with the help of creative agency Two Mad Cowboys, May says every person was a real life tasker. “We really wanted to show this human side and how everyday Australians are feeling at home with the reality of those partner, kid and
housemate walk-ins invariably happening during the shoot,” May says. “We were really cognizant of showing the reality and landing that
positive message, which is we will bounce back strong together.”
While questions were crafted and asked to each of the taskers, May says the answers were all unscripted. The biggest challenge though,
was getting them to look at the green dot on their webcam.
“They’re our taskers, it’s not their day job to talk to the camera,” she says. Overall, she says the brand isn’t opposed to using real taskers again
but it is unlikely that it will shoot another TVC entirely on video conferencing.
Likewise, Brock admits that if pre-recording all of Live From Aus was possible, the team probably would have done it.
“We probably would have really struggled to convince ourselves and everyone else of doing an all weekend live stream with 32 different streams across the entire country if the option of ‘why don’t we just pre-record it all’ [was possible],” he says.
“If that was an option, we might have gone for it because that’s the world we know. But because it wasn’t an option, we were forced to try something new.”
Following the weekend’s success, Tourism Australia has held more live streams on its channels. Brock says it has all been about timeliness.
“I think the timing was right that Tourism Australia was one of the first to get there and create incredible content,” he says.
The Airtasker campaign was shot and directed entirely through video calls and every person was a real life tasker.